







aO' s'!^'* ^ 










V' '^V^' <^ 



V ./' /^^v ' V..- ' yMM^ X /■ /; 



^a>'b" 



vv 












J^> ,..., ^. 














I: ^..^^ ymM' x/ • 






^' y ^* 







V* ♦ ' • ?' c 




o°^^;:>- ./-yi^'X .^°.-^^'°^ /^ 












• ""-ft* A*' \ 



')^..LV1', *> 







r\ » • • • » *^ 



v^^ 



"o. "*-'t:t'''* A* 






/ ,.>:^> ^-e, 

y ^ 

K 










./^--. 










■^v-^*'^ .*i 







^/h.- '%, .;**' - 



0^ ,«V'^ ^ 













-^-^•0^ 
^^^ 



















^^/'^'•'** aC^^ 









<> 'o« 



in^ 



•*U.o< 



o V 








V 









y 













< o 






V 















•/ /'"^^^ ^^^/ -^'^"^'^^ °'w^^/\ --^ 




>"■'<#-. 



/°%.'.wf:^„o' x-^-^^^^ 




.^o^ 





-^o. 



p *j:^'* ^ 













L- '^^'rv .<^ '^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^Y 



.^% 



fv V ,. o » o * ♦> 












>* .l^nL'* 







iP-n^ ;^i^^; ^^q.. 



^ <.^^ 



V 



o * 



• "' <^^ 



-^■''^^^^" \./ 




















<> '••'• A<' 










ELEMENTS 

OP 

PSYCHOLOGY. 



J. Mr TAYLOR. 



oEP 17 1892 ) 



Privately printed for the use of College Classes. 



POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y. : 

A. V. Halght, Printer, 12 Liberty Street, 

1892. 



'f- 






Entered according to act of Congress, in the j-ear 1892, by 

J. M. TAYLOR, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



PREFACE. 



In the preparation of these notes the author has kept before him- 
self three or four distinct aims. He has felt the need of a brief text- 
book, for the sake of the student, and as inviting to fuller discussion 
in the class-room than is possible with a larger book. 

He has borne in mind that the general student will not pursue this 
study beyond the course compelled by the college curriculum, and has 
therefore deemed it necessary to state, for such, certain philosophical 
implications of psychological teaching. 

He has wished to encourage independent reading on the part of the 
student. The references are accordingly made to the general works 
within reach of the college student. They are but suggestions. The 
class-room furnishes abundant opportunity for their amplification. 

It seems important that the beginner should have some definite 
center from which to reach out. and the book therefore aims to make 
briet statements, in positive form, of the positions that seem to the 
author justified by the facts. 

The book is for beginners in Psychology, and does not aspire to be 
judged, as is the case with too many of our text-books, as a contribu- 
tion to psychological theory or knowledge. 

August, 1892. 



PSTOHOLOGT. 

PAGE. 

I. Definition (Empirical and Rational), .... 5-7 

Consciousness (in brief). ... 6 

II. Relations, 7 

Physiology, 

Political and Social Science. 

Logic. 

Esthetics. 

Ethics, 

Theology. 



Physical Sciences. 

III. Value, 9 

IV. Difficulties, ......... 10 

V. Method, 11 

VI. Divisions, 13 

General Psychology. 

I. The Elements: Sensation, 15-32 

Definition. 

The Organism. 

Varieties of Movement (Specific Energy.) 

Psychophysics. 

The Psychical and Physical in this Sphere. 

Classification of Sensations, 24 





Special 




General and 


Taste, Smell, 




Temperature Sense. 


Muscular, Touch, 
Hearing, Sight. 




Object of the section. 






II. The Processes, 




32-60 


Initial Perception, . 




32 


Association, 




35 


Primary principles. 




37 


Secondary principles, . 




43 



COI^'TENTS. 



Theories suggested, 48 

(a) Physiological, 48 

(5) Chemical or Molecular, .... 50 

Memory, ......... 53-59 

Theories of Betention, 54 

[a) Psychological, 54 

Hamilton : Herbart , Wuiidt. 

(b) Physiological, 56 

Maudsley, Bain, Baldwin, McCosh, Ladd. 

Recognition, 58 

Cultivation of Memory, 59 

Comparison, 59 

Special Psychology. 

Perception, 61-76 

Perceptions gained through various senses, . . 62 

Taste and Smell, 62 

Muscular sense, 63 

Touch, 64 

Hearing, 67 

Sight, 69 

Constructive, 73 

Generalization, 76-82 

Abstraction, 78 

Classification 79 

Denomination, 80 

Judgment, 83 

Reasoning, 84 

Constructive Imagination : Idealization, .... 87 

Abnormal Illustrations of Mental Activities, . . . 92-96 

Dreams, 92 

Somnambulism, 94 

Hypnotism, 95 

Constitutive Principles of Knowledge, .... 96-112 

Consciousness, 96 

Time, 105 

Space, 106 

Substance, 109 

Trustworthiness of our knowledge, 112 

Causation, 115 



CONTEXTS. 



Reality of Subject and Object. 

Illustrative Historical Resume, 
The Feelings, 

The Xature of Feehng, . 
Note on Physical Basis. 
Note on Expression. 

The Nature of Pleasure and Pain, . 

Classification of Feelings, 

Influence of Feeling in Mental Life, 
TheWm, 

Antecedents to Voluntary Action, . 

Influence of the Will, 

Freedom of the Will, 



PAGE. 

118 

122 

138-147 

139 



142 
144 
146 
-153 
148 
150 
151 



14i 



PSYCHOLOGY. 

I. Definition : Psychology is the science which treats of 
the facts of the Mental or Psychical Life. 

By mental life is meant that which is expressed in any 
kind of consciousness^ — knowing, feeling, or willing. 
The common use of mental as identical with the first of 
these states, only, leads to the preference of the term 
psychical, as more technical and precise. But the word 
mental should be used as inclusiye of the three states here 
referred to. 

The facts of mental life include isolated phenomena, 
such as a single feeling, or sensation, — phenomena in com- 
bination, such as the mind's unification of a number of 
sensations in a single perception, — and processes, such 
as the association of ideas, or the recalling of past expe- 
riences. These may be treated as mere facts, objective to 
the inquiring mind, and may be established and classified, 
without inquiry as to the nature of the soul, and without 
effort to explain liotv the unity of the mental life may be 
explained in the face of the multitude of its experiences. 
Then we have Em2)irical Psycliology, the result of obser- 
vation and experiment. 

Or they may be so treated as to involve the further 
questions of the intelligent mind. What is the Mind, or 
Soul ? What is its relation to the Body ? "What is the na- 
ture of the object perceived ? Then we have Rational or 
Philosophical Psychology. 

While the scientific method compels us to first ascertain 
and classify ih^factSf the questions to which they lead can- 
not be avoided. Psychology must lead to Philosophy. 
While we shall aim to get the simple phenomena clearly 



6 PSYCHOLOGY. 

before us we shall not hesitate to follow their indications 
into the realm of Ontology, or Metaphysics. 

Murray, p. 1. Sully, p. 1. Dewey, 1, 2, 3. Lotze, Outlines, Introd. 
Fleming, Vocab Bowne, 1.2. Baldwin, 1, 8. Lindner, Lehrbuch, 
5 and 7. Janes, 10. Porter, 5, 6, Bowen's Hamilton, 84. Hill, 1. 
cf. Spencer, Psych. I, 129, 130, 140-1, on distinct^ of Psychology, 
Metaphysics, Ontology, cf. Seth, art. on Philosophy, Encyc. Brit., 
9th ed. 

Consciousness, according to the definition, is the dis- 
tinguishing feature of psychical life. It must be discussed, 
by implication, in the investigation of every form of 
mental life, and it will be more fully considered when the 
more complex factors of that life are before us, but to avoid 
confusion it must be clearly defined at the outset. 

It is not a faculty (Reid), nor a feeling (many sensa- 
tionalists), for feeling exists only in consciousness, nor 
'' the complement of cognitive faculties," *^ the genus of 
which cognitive acts are the species '^ (Hamilton), for every 
faculty, in exercise, is conditioned on consciousness, nor 
''i\iQ poiuer by which the soul knows its own acts and 
states ^^ (Porter), nor ^^the souFs power to know that it 
is itself that knows " (Hopkins) [not so in ^' Outline " cf. 
p. 107, 108], which makes consciousness a power turning 
attention to that which is known ex hypothesi in conscious- 
ness. It is rather a state, or condition, accompanying 
every exercise of the soul, an awareness of self and not- 
self, of self through the medium of a notself, " witli- 
Jcnowing." Feeling and Willing, therefore, as well as 
Knowing, are conditioned on conciousness. It is the life 
of the soul, involuntary, like life, and so to be distinguished 
from Cognition, being the spontaneous and invariable ac- 
companiment of every cognition of self or notself. The 
various divisions sometimes made, therefore, into spon- 
taneous, philosophical, self, consciousness, mark only va- 
rieties of degree, and not of kind. Every mental ex- 



PSYCHOLOGY. 7 

perience involves consciousness, and every consciousness 
involves self, and notself. 

The development of consciousness is not here in ques- 
tion. It will be better discussed later. This definition 
makes clear the separation between the science of Psy- 
chology and every science which deals with unconscious 
phenomena [see under later discussion]. It is neither 
physical nor physiological : its field is a new order of phe- 
nomena. But it has to other sciences close relationship. 

Beferences.—hmdRev, 1, 2. Hill, 14. Baldwin, c, 4. Bowen's 
Hamilton, cc. 8-11. Dewey, 2. Murray, 2, B. Bascom, 210. 
Bowne, 235 sq. Wayland, 110 sq. Porter, 85 sq. McCosh, Cognitive 
Powers, 70, 71, 74. 83, 242. Fleming, on hist, scholastic, definitions, 
&c. Hopkins Outline Study, 106. 

II. Relations. 

1. Physiology, (a) Connection. The influence of body 
on mind is too potent to need enforcement. The injury of 
the brain may result in loss of mental life ; close study 
prolonged exhausts brain-power ; sleep, refreshing the body, 
gives power to the mind ; disease of the brain produces 
illusions and insanity. 

It seems, too, to be established that certain mental func- 
tions depend upon the healthy condition of certain por- 
tions of the brain, as the power of speech on Broca^s con- 
volution, and that molecular changes accompany every 
exercise of thought. 

That the influence of mind on body is equally real is 
seen in the facts of medical science, in ^' Mind-cure,^' in 
familiar experiences of every life. 

None of these facts establish any other relation than 
that of co-ordination. 

{b) Separation. (1) All the facts of physiology are ob- 
jective. They occur in space, and are characterized by 
movement. If traced back as far as observation can go. 



8 PSYCHOLOGY. 

they show no indication of consciousness. They lack the 
very elements which give psychology its reason for being. 
Thought is not marked by movement, nor by spatial re- 
lations. It is not objective. It is only known in con- 
sciousness. 

(2.) No possible reasoning can connect these two realms, 
so diverse in every particular. Even those whose general 
reasonings leave an impression of a closer connection than 
facts warrant, say explicitly that no passage is discover- 
able between molecular movement and states of conscious- 
ness. So Huxley (Fortnightly, Dec, '86), Tyndall, who 
declares the chasm '' intellectually impassable, '^ and 
Spencer,— Psych. 1 : 158, 161. 

(3.) The difference in sensations is not explicable through 
any difference in construction of nerves and cells. No 
explanation can even be suggested which does not imply 
another kind of existence, a discriminating, interpreting, 
consciousness. These movements have no meaning apart 
from it, and we distinguish ourselves from these. 

Baldwin, pp. 3-8. Bascom. Compar. Psych, c. 1. Sci. of Mind, 
34. Lotze, Outlines, 9. Sully, 3-4. Porter, 16-40. Bowne, c. 1. 
Benedict, Pop. Sci. Mo , Ap. May, June, 1885. Taine, Intelligence, 
185. Dewey, 37-44. Ladd, 633-667. Bain, Senses and InteUect, 11, 
13. Lindner, 13, 13. 

The above makes evident what must be the value, and 
the limitations, of Physiological Psychology. This new 
science can only investigate and discuss laws which govern 
the relations of body and mind. From the nature of the 
case the study of Physiology, which is objective, wholly, 
and which must regard the body as a mechanism, can 
throw no light on the real nature of mental processes. On 
the other hand it can show the bodily conditions under 
which mental operations are possible, are hindered, or 



PSYCHOLOGY. 9 

destroyed, or are encouraged, and so trace the correlations 
of the nervous organism and the mental life. 

Def . of the Science and compass, Ladd, Introd. , espec. § 3 and 8 (at 
end). Carpenter, Ment. Physiol. Introd., ch. 6. Wundt, Physiol. 
Psychologie, Einleitung, 1-7. 

(2.) Political and Social Sciences. 

All rest on certain assumed data which must be tested, 
at last, by psychological investigations. Jurisprudence, 
e. g. Theories of the State, and Society. 

(3.) Logic, as dealing with laws of thought must rest 
on investigation of origin and trustworthiness of thought. 

(4. ) Esthetics : the nature of the esthetic ideal, the 
analysis of the pleasurable and beautiful, lead us at once 
into psychology. 

(5. ) Ethics rests on certain assumptions regarding human 
nature which are tested only by psychological investigation. 

(6.) Theology justifies its conclusions by appeal to the 
nature of man, that is, by facts established by Psychology. 

(7.) Pedagogy, dealing with the training and instruction 
of the mind, is fundamentally a psychological science, and 
only the careful study of the mind^s operations, the natural 
order of development of the faculties, the results of various 
modes of training, can give one a sound theory of edu- 
cation. 

(8. ) The Physical Sciences. The very conceptions under- 
lying them, '^force,'^ ^' substance, ^^ ^^ cause, "^ ^' space," 
''time,'' &C-, are ' philosophical, and their justification 
must be sought in psychological facts. 

Porter, §§ 13, 13. Sully, pp. 14-16. Dewey, 3, 4. Janes, 6, 7. 
Bowen's Hamilton, p. 13 sq. Seth, closing part of '* Philosophy," 
Encyc. Brit. 9th ed. 

III. Value. 

(1.) The great importance of the study is seen in the 



10 PSYCHOLOGY. 

scope of its relations, just indicated. But we may add 
more particular considerations. 

(2.) Its help in enabling us to meet the problems which 
press on us, the question of Being, our own existence, the 
existence of the world external to us, — the question of 
Knoiving, how can we know ? what can we know ? 
what is the relation of the Self and Not-Self given us in 
experience ? Man's origin, capacities, destiny, are all in- 
volved. " The study of consciousness is the study of hu- 
manity." (Cousin). Self knowledge underlies all true 
knowledge. 

(3.) Our philosophical theories, expressed or unknown, 
shape our modes of thought and influence our investiga- 
tions and conclusions. 

(4.) In the light of the crass materialism of our time 
the value of the study is very great. 

(5.) Has the utmost importance in connection with 
the study of Hypnotism, Theosophy, " Christian Science," 

i&C. 

(6.) As mental discipline, the improvement of capacities 
and powers. Not native mental strength distinguishes the 
educated and uneducated so much as attention, clisc7Hmi- 
nation, definition, dear tliought. These are especially cul- 
tivated by this study. 

Bowen's Hamilton, pp. 6, 9, 10, 13 and 19 {note). Janes, 7-10. 
Porter, 10 sq. Bascom, Introd., 1-8. 

IV. Difficulties. 

The nature of the subject-matter of the science, and 
the unfamiliarity of most students with prolonged pro- 
cesses of observation of mental states, make the study dif- 
ficult. The looseness of language, also, the use of the 
same word, as "know," or "idea," or even '^sensation," 
and " perception," in several different senses, adds to the 
difficulty of exact statement. There is need of great care 



PSYCHOLOGY. 11 

in this respect, and of patient cialtiyation of the habit of 
introspection and careful obseryation. 

Fleming, Vocab. (on above words). Bascom, 22 sq. 

V. Method. 

The subject-matter of this Science compels the use of 
the introspective method, but the chances of error in the 
subjective examination of the facts of consciousness and 
in the report and comparison of these facts and the limita- 
tion of introspection to the individual experience, necessi- 
tate the supplementing of this by the method of observa- 
tion and experiment. The results of mental life, in 
language, customs, history, must be used as tests of the 
so-called '^'^ deliverances of consciousness/^ Keligions and 
literatures must be studied for illustrations of the mind^s 
workings. (Volkerpsychologie). The growth of the men- 
tal powers must be watched in the infant, that we may see 
clearly what is original, and what the result of experience. 
(Infant Psychology.) Experiment upon the blind, or those 
deprived of any sense, must be used to show clearly the 
indebtedness of the normal mental life to each of the 
senses, and abnormal conditions, mental disease, hypno- 
tism, &c., must be studied as illustrations of the action, or 
inaction, of our powers where there is disturbance of 
normal harmony (Psychiatry). Physiological and physical 
experiments may also determine more clearly the relations 
of mental to physical states. (Psychometry.) The study 
of animal intelligence may throw light on the growth of 
mental life, as certain faculties are studied in simpler con- 
ditions. (Comparative Psychology). 

But in all these studies of external facts the ultimate 
appeal and test must be in consciousness itself, where alone 
the data are interpretable for us. 

Baldwin c. 2. Dewey, § 2. Hill, 4. Bascom, 19, 20. Sully 4 to 8, 
and app. A. McCosh, Cog. Powers, Introd. Bowne, 1-7, Porter, 
51-60. Hamilton (Bowen, c. 4) Ladd, p. 10. 



12 PSYCHOLOGY. 

The Introspective Method has been denounced as en- 
tirely unscientific, on the grounds that we never are able 
to observe the activity of consciousness, that we cannot 
pause to do it without losing from our grasp the conscious- 
ness we would examine, and that the supposition of the 
power to do this involves the division of self into observer 
and observed, simultaneously. The observation, moreover, 
is mdividiial, and so not exact for all, and necessarily 
narrow in range. 

But the mind has power to do precisely what is here 
denied, — to attend to its own states, to watch them in 
progress, to recall them immediately and to review them, 
to repeat and re-examine them. It can carefully compare 
results with those obtained by others, and thus reduce the 
errors of observation. Great care is necessary, from the 
nature of the subject-matter, but the objection is futile 
and baseless. 

Comte Positive Philos. (Transl.) 1 : 11. Maudsley Physiol, and 
Pathol, of Mind. pp. 10 sq. (Am. Ed.) Mill (adverse) Comte 59 (63 
Eng. Ed.) Calderwood Moral Phil., 5 and 6. Hill, 5. Sully, 681-2, 
Martineau, Types, 2 : 4 and 5. 

The Experimental Method has made very exaggerated 
claims for itself, in sympathy with certain prevalent intel- 
lectual tendencies. Some of these claims will be noted in 
detail hereafter. Baldwin (29-31) has summed up the 
general considerations. Experiment deals chiefly with the 
lower mental activities, and even then often lacks in ex- 
actness, involving always a subjective side, and dealing 
with averages rather than individual results. It may well 
be asked, too, whether, if Psychophysics, for example, be- 
comes more exact, its results will prove of great value to 
Psychology. 

cf. Dr. McCosh, in Introd. to Ribot's Germ. Psych, of To-day (transl.) 
See Murray's § 2, a survey of the sciences whose study will aid in 
guarding against mistakes of introspection. 



PSYCHOLOGY. 13 

VI. Divisions. 

An examination of the functions of the soul discloses 
intellectual, emotional, and volitional, powers, not entirely 
separated or separable in their action, not organs of the 
soul, but interrelated manifestations of mental life. 

In ancient Philosophy and among the Schoolmen, the 
division of these powers was based largely on Aristotle^s, 
the ISToetic and Orective, or Cognitive and Motive, the 
Understanding and Will of the later Schoolmen. Still later 
we find the Intellectual and Active Powers (Reid) corre- 
sponding to the old division. The feeling that this classi- 
fication left the sensibilities in an uncertain relation to 
both classes led to the introduction, in Germany, of the 
threefold division here given, and this was adopted 
by Kant, and made common in English thought by 
Hamilton. Largely through the influence of the latter 
the Cognitive Powers have been subdivided into Presenta- 
tive (or Acquisitive), Conservative, Reproductive, Repre- 
sentative, Elaborative, Regulative (or Intuitive). Many 
reduce these to four classes, placing the second and third 
under the fourth head. The Emotive, and Conative Pow- 
ers, or Feeling and Willing, are then treated separately. 

This division seems artificial and forced. There are cer- 
tain facts and processes common to all these experiences 
of the mental life, and underlying them all. The old di- 
vision compels us, therefore, in passing from one to an- 
other, to cross and recross these common tracks. Dr. J. 
Clark Murray has suggested a better classification of the 
science, which promises to make its way to general accept- 
ance. He divides the treatment of the subject into Gen- 
eral and Special Psychology, the first dealing with the ele- 
ments present in all phases of mental life and the processes 
of their combination, and the second with the nature of 



14 PSYCHOLOGY. 

these combinations, as exhibited in the three general types 
of Knowing, Feeling, and Willing. 

Murray's Handbook of Psych,, 15, 17, 111 sq. 

Baldwin, c. 3 and pp. 80-1*. Sully, 20-25, and App. B. Hill, 7-9. 
McCosh, Cog. Pow. § 4 (Defense of '' Faculties" vs. Herbart: divides 
into Cognitive and Motive, cf. p. 15). Hamilton I, 123 (Bowen's Ham., 
76-81, 120, 275, or Murray's Ham., 66). Porter, 40-50. Spencer, 
I : 142. Bain, 6-9. Wundt, 11-18 (on the 3-fold division in Germany.) 



GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

I. The ELEMEis^TS : Sexsatiox. 

Definition. A sensation is an elementary consciousness 
excited by movement in the bodily organism. 

It is important to note carefully the implications of this 
definition. The word sensation is very frequently used 
with an objective reference, as if it were a pliysiological 
fact, an impression. It is not a movement, nor a nervous 
action, but a psychical fact, a conscious7iess. 

It is further defined here as elementary y because it is the 
simplest, undeveloped, reaction of the soul, or mind, 
against physical stimulus. It is the aim of every science 
to reach back to its ultimate and unanalyzable elements. 
These may be unknown in actual experience, as are atoms, 
e. g., but they must be assumed, and facts sustain the hy- 
pothesis. So in psychology our simplest perception of the 
external will be found to involve still simpler elements, 
that is, to be themselves capable of analysis. The elements 
thus discovered are sensations. As is implied, they are 
not found, in our developed experience, in independent ex- 
istence, but every such experience involves them, a simple, 
subjective condition, where no reference is made to the ex- 
ternal object, a feeling excited by a non-psychical stimulus. 

General refs. on Sensation, Definition, &c. 

Lotze, Outlines, 5-8. Dewey, c. 3. Ladd, 306. Bowne, c. 2. Bald- 
win {vs. Lewes' objective use, p. 82) 83-85. Porter (sense perception) 
119 sq, espec. 127-8. SuUy, c. 5. Carpenter, 148, note. Bain, 117. 
Lindner, 27. HiU, 24-32. Murray, 18-23. 

The bodily organism is capable of awakening this con- 
sciousness, and is therefore called sensitive. The capacity 
is sensihility, and its special forms are the senses. 

This capacity is due to the nervous system. 



16 GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Any detailed account of the nervous system must be 
sought in especial works on Physiology, such as Kirk's 
Handbook, — or Huxley's Lessons in Elementary Physi- 
ology. 

Here a bare outline of the subject will suffice, — and more 
special study may be left for later occasions, as they arise. 

Two systems constitute the nervous organism, the Cere- 
bro-spinal and the Sympathetic, the former including the 
brain, medulla oblongata, and spinal cord, — and the 
nerves proceeding from these, — and the latter consisting 
of certain ganglia, plexuses, and fibres, chiefly related to 
the viscera, and demanding no attention here. 

They have to do, mostly, with parts capable only of 
involuntary movements (Kirk, espec. 709-712). 

The cerebro-spinal system consists of grey, cellular, 
matter, found throughout the brain and spinal cord, and 
white fibrous matter. It is probable that the grey matter 
of the cord is not sensitive, though it may conduct some 
impressions which awaken sensation (Kirk — 545). 

The nerves (white and fibrous) which spread to every 
part of the body terminate in the cord, — and the fibres 
from these nerves are largely (about one-half) absorbed in 
the cord itself— (Kirk— 539). 

The nerves which enter the cord on the posterior portion 
are called Centripetal, or Afferent, — and convey im- 
pressions inward : those which proceed from the anterior 
portion of the cord, are the Centrifugal, or Efferent, and 
awaken motion. (See diagram in Kirk — p. 547). 

The Medulla Oblongata continues both the grey and 
white matter of the cord, — and is the center through 
which all impressions pass from cord to brain, and brain 
to cord. 

The brain also consists of grey and white matter, but 
here, unlike the cord and medulla, the grey matter is ex- 
ternal, and serves as a covering for the white. The white 



GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 17 , 

matter is still fibrous, but the sheath here gives place to a 
delicate tissue. The fibres are smaller than in the cord. 
This is the center of the whole nervous system, — and in 
this sense may be regarded as the cliief organ of mind. 

The nerves have no capacity in themselves for awaken- 
ing the conditions of their activity, but respond instantly 
to mechanical, chemical, thermal, and electrical, stimuli. 
They are mere conductors of impressions — (Kirk — 519, 
520). 

The movement along a nerve-fibre, the nature of which 
is not understood, is very rapid, being estimated at 111 
feet per second in motor nerves (Helmholtz) and at 140 
feet in sensory nerves (V"on Witfcich, from Kirk — p. 521), 
under normal circumstances. 

The definition has indicated the necessity of movement 
to produce sensation, and the nature of the organism thus 
sketched illustrates the need. These movements may be 
of various kinds and degrees and they give rise to a great 
variety of sensations. 

They may be due to action in the organism itself, — to 
the involuntary movements which are the accompaniment 
of all life, — or to any external stimulus. The nature of 
the sensation must vary with that of the stimulus. 

According to the amplitude of a movement, the 
distance through which the body moves from a point of 
rest (as when we pluck a piano string), — will be the 
intensity of a sensation. 

According to the velocity of a movement will be the 
kind of the sensation. A sensation of hearing, e. g., is 
produced by vibrations ranging from about twenty to 
about thirty-eight thousand per second. Four hundred 
and fifty-one billions of vibrations give us the sensation 
we call red, seven hundred and eighty-five billions produce 
violet. 



18 GEITERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Beyond these are the actinic and electric effects of move- 
ment. 

Again, movements may be regular, orderly, or ir- 
regular, with the the result of harmonious, pleasing, or 
confused, sensations. 

Are these varieties of movement a sufficient explanation 
of the varieties of sensation ? Or are we to look also to 
some specific energy of the nerves themselves ? Every re- 
action of the mind against a stimulus to the nerve ends of 
the fingers gives a sensation of touch : every such stimu- 
lus to the optic nerve produces sensations of light. Is 
this '' specific energy " true of the whole nervous system ? 
Is it an original property of these nerves, or, so far as it 
is true, is it acquired by use ? 

1. Variety of movement, great as it is, and manifold in 
its effects, could not be a sufficient explanation, even if we 
could suppose that this vast variety was propagated, as 
such, through the nerves. 

2. There is no discovered difference in the composition 
of the various nerves, — even those connected with special 
sense-organs, — and thus the hypothesis of original proper- 
ties must be set aside. This is true also of the internal 
nerve endings (Wundt 1 : 315). 

3. Specific energy is a fact, as is seen in the deliverances 
of the special sense-organs. 

4. Experiment would seem to have established a certain 
localization of functions in the brain. There has been 
much exaggeration in the claims of some of those teaching 
this view, — but it must be admitted, in a general way. 
There are no ^wch. fixed areas as some claim ; they overlap, 
and are indefinite. Nevertheless all parts of the brain are 
not involved in all its functions. Much depends on 
structure, and proper connections with the periphery are 
essential. But experiment also shows that the functions 
of one cerebral centre may be taken up by another, — 



GEITEEAL PSYCHOLOGY. 19 

tliough this is generally true only of contiguous portions, 
or of corresponding parts of the other hemisphere. 

But cf from note Brown-Sequard on 17*. Ladd, 301-303. 

5. Experiment also points to the establishment of an 
acquired Specific Nerve energy, especially due to the 
varieties of nerve endings, and their common relation to 
special forms of stimulus. 

Thus there are about 20,000 forms of endings in the 
auditory apparatus. Only one kind of ending has been 
discovered in the organ of smell, — but it is known that 
the fine network of endings extends broadly over the 
olfactory region, and experiment may yet show unsuspect- 
ed variety. 

As such endings condition the stimuli which reach the 
nerves through them, the nerves are supposed to become 
gradually adjusted to particular forms of movement, and 
to respond more readily to these. 

There is doubt as to the final form of the theory of 
Specific Energy, but it seems to be necessary to accept 
the general statements here given. 

Ladd, 301-2, 353-5, 52-55. Kirk, 616, 619. Bowne, 43-46. 
Lindner, 39-40. Lotze, Outlines, 6-8 and 22-25. Wundt, I, 313 sq, 
(difficulties, and p. 318, a possible solution). 

6. It would seem to be still farther established that 
every impression produces, in addition to the sensation 
awakened through the specific ending, an additional im- 
pression due to ^^ the nature of the place excited. ^^ This 
is the theory of Local Signs, due to Lotze, and of great 
importance in the discussion of the idea of space. 

It is adduced here as bearing on varieties of sensation. 
To use his illustration, — Every impression of red, r, pro- 
duces on all parts of the retina, the same sensation of red- 
ness. But on the various parts, a, hy c, it produces also 
the impression a', V , c', — according to the place. 



20 GEN'ERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

The cerebral areas would then be excited peculiarly, in 
response to this peripheral stimulus. 

Lotze, Outlines, 51-55. Ladd, 396-400. 

This evident relation of the sensation to the degree and 
kind of stimulus, as is seen in its intensity and quality, 
has led to eilorts to establish a law for the relation of 
stimulus and sensation, and so to the effort to measure the 
time (Psychometry) and degree of these elementary 
mental states. We thus have the science of Psychophysics. 

Kant had objected that sensations could not- be 
measured, as they had but one dimension, — time. But it 
was answered that intensity, which is equivalent to 
quantity, furnishes a second. Herbart, with his mechani- 
cal and mathematical tendency, gave great attention to 
the effort to express psychical facts in mathematical 
formulae (Eibot, 33 sq.). Fechner, however, believing 
earnestly that the physical and psychical are but two sides 
of one and the same life, gave his energies for years to 
expressing the law of their relationship, which held, he 
believed, through the whole domain of the psychical life. 
(See the Introd. ch. to his Hauptpuncte). 

The aim was to measure sensation in terms of stimulus, 
— since, in the nature of things there could be no subjec- 
tive measurement. Weber was experimenting in Germany, 
while Fechner was thinking out his theory. He tells us 
that ^^ one morning in bed^^ he suddenly formulated it, 
and then found Weber^s experimental law ready to his 
hands. 

He saw that the proportion of the sensation to the 
stimulus, as it was increased, was not in arithmetical pro- 
gression. He asserted that the stimulus must increase in 
geometrical progression to produce increase of sensation in 
arithmetical. Or, as he expressed it in his formula, Y 
(the sensation) = K (a constant) X log. B (stimulus). 
That is, the sensation is related not to the absolute amount 



GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 21 

of stimulus, but to the logarithm of it ; the stimulus is 
not in arithmetical, but in geometrical proportion to the 
sensation. 

Weber^s experiments came to about the same conclusion. 
We strive to ascertain the smallest perceptible increase of 
sensation, and note the amount of stimulus needed to pro- 
duce the increase. So by numerous experiments, it is 
claimed, we tell the amount of sensation in terms of 
stimulus. 

A simple form of experiment may be referred to. The 
hand is placed on the table and weights are gradually set 
on it. Add till the subject notes a difference in feeling. 
Many repetitions of the experiment will show that from -| 
to i additional is always needed to produce a change of 
feeling. 

Similar experiments for other senses will be found in 
the references, and accounts of more complicated experi- 
ments. The increase in case of sensations of hearing is 
about i, in case of light about tfo, in muscular pres- 
sure iV. 

G-ranting the value of the experiments within a small 
range, for they are admittedly vitiated in conditions of low 
and exalted sensibility, the question still arises as to the 
light they throw on psychical life. 

The stimulus is applied to bodily organs, and is trans- 
mitted through nerve fibres and centres. It is far 
more probable that the change in the proportion of stimu- 
lus is due to these physiological conditions than to any 
psychical facts or law. 

Though the necessary increase in stimulus is found to be 
" a constant,^^ the mind recognizes only a difference, and 
the external measure cannot be an exact expression of any 
mental fact. Where the measurement of stimulus is 
physical and that of sensation psychical there can be no 



22 GEN-ERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

certainty in the results. The ''personal equation " must 
largely enter into the experiment. 

We can only say of intensities that they are more or less. 
To express this in mathematical formulae on the basis of 
experiments on stimulus would seem to be impossible. 

The results, thus far, therefore, would not seem to have 
important bearings on Psychology. 

The objection that the new Science is materialistic is 
met by Fechner in the assertion that the whole material 
universe is a representation of a universal spiritual Being, 
but that it is not for Psychophysics to develop that 
(Hauptpuncte, p. 13). The reply is valid, whether one 
accepts Fechner^s Monistic position, or not. The tendency 
of some investigators to press psychical action into the 
compass of the law of the (;orrelation and convertability 
of forces, is however undoubted. 

Fechner, Hauptpuncte der Psychophysik (espec. Introd, ch.) 

Ladd, Pt. 2, c. 5. Ribot, Germ. Psych, of To-day, p 43, 134 sq. 
(good resume). Lotze, 16-20. Murray, 23-29. Bowne, c. 2. Bald- 
win, 106 sq. Spencer, Psych. 1 : 98 sq. (espec. 115-128). Lindner, 
31-35. Ward (Mind, vol. I. — a criticism of Fechner). Jastrow 
(Mind, vol. II). 

Methods of Experiment espec. in Jastrow and Ribot. 

Ueberweff 2 : 322-3. cf. Sully, 113-4. Dewey, 52. 

Wundt — Phys. Psych, (in Ribot, also, where Zeller and others are 
also quoted). Note Bowne, p. 52, on what Fechner's law may give, 
negatively ! And cf. James' humorous paragraph 1 : 549, (he thinks 
Weber's law purely physiological). 

This investigation serves to bring out more fully the 
facts implied in the definition. In the simplest elements 
of mental life we have the psychical and physiological in 
closest relation, but not identified with one another, or 
even coalescing. They are correlative. 

Every sensation involves. 

1. An external stimulus ; 



ge:n-eral psychology. 23 

2. The contact of this with a nerve ending through 
a sensitive portion of the body ; 

3. The conduct of the impression, or its resultant move- 
ment, to the central organ ; 

4. The sensation. The first three steps are distinctly 
physical ; the fourth is psychical. 

The three may occur without the fourth. 

This is directly against every materialistic theory of the 
origin of psychical life. 

In addition to what has been said-, pp. 7 and 8, on the 
relations of Psychology to Physiology, it is to be noted 
here, as the revelation of the first step in the analysis of 
mental life, that the soul of man has another nature than 
his body, and than the physical world which acts upon it. 

Materialism assumes that the physical, the changes of 
matter, and the forces of nature, are causes of psychical 
life. That the relation is a close one, that they may be 
occasions of mental activity, has been already indicated, 
but the facts are entirely against a causal relation. From 
the nervous excitation to the elementary consciousness, 
from motion to sensation^ no path is discoverable, or think- 
able. 

Nor can we conceive how motion can cause the various 
particular sensations to which we are subject, — waves of 
air resulting now in sound, now in light, — red, blue, or 
violet. 

Materialism has no explanation to offer : it must at last 
assume that these different worlds are causally related. 

(Xo general argument against Materialism is here 
attempted : it is referred to only as it concerns the begin- 
nings of psychic life). 

Murray, 26. Lotze, 9. Dewey, 38 sq. Spencer, 1 : 158-161. 
Benedict, Pop. Sci. Mo., June, '85. Bascom, Compar. Psych., c. 1. 
Id., Sci. of Mind, 454, Bowne, 19 sq. Carpenter, c. 1. 



24 GEN"ERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Classification of Sensations. 

The various sensations have been classified according 
to the mode of motion operating on the organism, as 
dynamic, etheric, chemical, or mechanical and chemi- 
cal, or gaseous, liquid, solid, thermal, electrical. It will 
be seen, however, that all these have reference rather to 
the special forms of sensibility, as shown in the special or- 
gans of sense. There are beside these, various sensations 
due to the general system, not to be classified with those 
given through any special sense. The former are given 
through organs whose direct function is to furnish us with 
knowledge ; the latter are produced through organs having 
other special offices, and which are only indirectly organs 
of sense. Hence the classification may be properly made 
according to these classes : 

I. General Sensations, such as arise in connection with 
muscles and viscera. 

II. Special Sensations, such as are produced through 
the organs of smell, taste, touch, hearing, and sight, and 
the special sensibility of the muscular system, the so-called 
muscular-sense. 

See discussions of plurality of special senses, and relations of all to 
touch, as discussed by Aristotle, Scaliger, and others, in Bowen's 
Hamilton. 367 sq. 

Kant divides into Vital and Organic (special) ; Bowne into Intel- 
lectual and Organic (general). Hill, 32-33, gives Muscular. Organic, 
Special. Murray, whom I follow here, 29-31. Lindner, 36 and 39. 
Dewey, 46-50 (as here, with discussion of Touch as fundamental 
sense). Kirk (Common and Special) 616. 

General Sensations. 

The movements which accompany all life, such as are 
due to the action of the digestive and respiratory organs, 
for example, in their normal states, and to a still greater 
degree in abnormal conditions, are productive of Sensa- 
tions. These are not distinctly localized, — and they have 



GElfERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 25 

very slight relation to knowledge, but have a closer rela- 
tionship to feeling, and so to the whole emotional life. 
The importance of the general system to the psychic life 
is thus indirect, though incalculably great, since the con- 
ditions of mental power and healthfulness largely depend 
on the physical system. 

Murray, 60-1, 65-71. Lindner, 37-9. Dewey, 75-8. Perez, 35. 
Porter, 137. Bain, 120-152. 

The Sensations of the Temperature Sense ally themselves 
more closely with these general sensations than with the 
special, but the progress of investigation tends to show a 
relation to the latter, in that something akin to a special 
organ has been discovered. 

In addition to the general sensibility of any organism to 
heat and cold the human system is supplied with a kind 
of special organ for thermal sensibility. Goldscheider^s 
and others" experiments, as related by Ladd, seem to 
demonstrate that there are certain spots on the skin 
sensitive to heat, and certain others sensitive to cold, — 
and these are insensitive to other stimulus, to pressure 
or to pain. 

But these sensations are also very vague, and like those 
just referred to have small importance in the development 
of knowledge. 

Ladd, pp. 346-350 (and refs.). Perez, 37-8. Murray, 68. 
Donaldson (Mind, No. 39). 

Special Sensations. 

Taste. — The sensations of taste, though awakened 
through a special organ, are almost as vague as those of 
the general senses. Efforts have been made to classify 
them, but with little success. They are with difficulty 
distinguished from those of smell, ofttimes, — as in case of 
cinnamon, for example, which has no taste. They are 



26 GEN"ERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

confounded with sensations of relish, which are alimen- 
tary. 

These have very small importance to knowledge, are 
very indefinite and transient in nature, and with difficulty, 
if at all, recoverable. 

As Bain points out, the sense is a help in discriminating 
what is proper for food, and a source of enjoyment in con- 
nection with it. 

Classif. of Tastes, cf. Murray, 33 and ref. 

Murray, 32. Dewey, 61. Bain, 152 sq. Grant Allen, Pop. Sci. 
Mo., 26: 471 sq. Bernstein, Five Senses of Man, Pt. 4. Ladd, 
311-15. 

The Organ, Kirk, Ladd. 

Smell. — Sensations of smell are also very vague and are 
easily confounded with those of taste, with pulmonary and 
alimentary sensations, and with those due to irritating 
substances, as snuff or pepper. The sense is useful in 
testing the purity of air, and has close relation to appetite, 
and is thus, like taste, related closely to the emotional life. 
It is much more developed, accordingly, in animals, as 
in the dog, and in the lower races of men, than in the 
civilized. 

Bain, 163 sq, Ladd, 308-11. Murray, 36-40. Dewey, 59-61. 
Baldwin, 86. The Organ, Kirk, 635 sq. Bernstein, pt. 4. 

Muscular Sense. 

Among the special senses must be ranked that which is 
the avenue of our sensations of tension and motion. Until 
recently this was treated as a part of touch, but it differs 
essentially from the purely tactile sense, and, as will be 
seen, underlies the larger amount of knowledge gained 
through the senses of touch aud sight, and much also that 
is gained through the sense of hearing. 

The right of this to a special place has been denied by 
some, as Terrier, and W. James, on the ground that such 



GEKEEAL PSYCHOLOGY. 27 

** a complex assemblage of impressions of different cate- 
gories^^ has no claim to a single name. But this ^'com- 
plex " is traceable to a single origin, and the muscular 
system is the organ employed. 

This system contains both voluntary and involuntary 
muscles, those controlled by the will, and those, as the 
heart, beyond its control. The voluntary muscles are the 
organ of this sense. 

There is still much discussion as to the precise source of 
these sensations in the organism. There are sensory nerve 
fibres imbedded in the muscles, and many find the explana- 
tion in these. Others deny the sufficiency of this explana- 
tion, and ascribe the sensation to " central feelings of in- 
nervation,^^ the stimulus of the brain itself, while others 
ascribe them to the interpretation of the feelings in the 
skin, due to motion, tension, &c. 

Experiment (Beaunis, Ladd, Baldwin, in ref^s below) 
seems to show that the third theory is unsupported by 
facts, and the nature of the sensations experienced wo aid 
seem to indicate truth in doth the other hypotheses. The 
motion would seem to imply a central stimulus, and the 
tension the action of the sensory fibres in the muscles 
themselves. 

Tension includes all feeling of weight, whether due to 
the organism or to an external body. 

Motion includes all experiences of effort, from the most 
indolent dawdling to the most vigorous exercise. Sir Wm. 
Hamilton calls this feeling due to volitional effort ^* the 
locomotive faculty^' and confines '^ muscular sense ^' to 
the passive feeling due to tension. (Bain's criticism of 
this, p. 116.) 

Although the direct knowledge gained through the sense 
is small, it furnishes the data, in connection with the other 
senses, of the most important knowledge, the idea of force, 
body, space, and time (so Bain). Its value in connection 



28 GEN-ERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

with all acquired skill is manifest. But the consideration 
of these points belongs under Perception. 

The difference of this sense from others in regard to the 
mode of stimulus should be noted. They are all passive : 
this is active. The important bearing of this fact on 
knowledge will be seen later. 

Ladd, 344 and 415. Sully, 134 sq. Baldwin, 88 sq. Murray, 62- 
65. Bain, 91 sq (with valuable quotations from specialists). Porter, 
136. Dewey, 56. Wundt, 1 : 372. Kirk, 591 (supposition that the 
cerebellum is the special organ of this sense). History of the dis- 
covery of the sense. Hamilton's Reid, p. 867. Bastian, Brain as 
Organ of Mind, app., Hall, Mind, Oct., '78. Janes, 52-4. Hopkins, 
Outline, 87. 

Touch. — We deal here with the purely tactile sensibility. 
Most of our so-called sensations of touch are involved with 
the muscular sense. This is true of sensations of pressure 
(not all : the pressure spots, below), and most probably of 
those of roughness, smoothness, stickiness, &c. Through 
the tactile sense proper we have sensations of contact. 
Kirk adds pain, but this is not a simple sensation, as it 
involves pressure, or other muscular movement. 

The organ is the skin, and the membranes lining the 
mouth, nostrils, &c. The nails, teeth, and hair, may be 
mentioned as instruments of the general organ. The pe- 
culiar sensibility is due to the so-called " pressure spots,'' 
corpuscles in the skin, similar to the temperature spots al- 
ready described, and connected by fibrils with the larger 
nerves. They are scattered over the various parts of the 
body, and differ among themselves in sensitiveness. They 
yield a definite sensation of their own. 

Unlike the simpler senses, as taste and smell, which are 
receptive only of sapid or oxydized bodies, this has the 
widest possible range, responding to air, water, solids, all 
that can exert pressure. It will be seen, therefore, that 
this sense must furnish the data for a far wider range of 



GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 29 

knowledge, when nsed, at it always is, in connection with 
the muscular sense already described. And not only is it 
susceptible to a large variety of influences, but the sensa- 
tions are easily discriminated and localized. The acuteness 
of the sensibility varies in different parts of the organ. 
The tip of the tongue and of the fore finger are most 
sensitive, the middle of the back the least so. (See tables 
in Hill and Kirk.) The results were obtained by Weber, 
who experimented with a pair of compasses, and discovered 
the least distance within which one can discern both 
points. This is his ^'sensory circle. ^^ (Full account in 
Bain, 188-191). 

Bernstein, ef. I. Baldwin, 96-7. Murray, 40-6. Sully, 123-5. 
Hill, 83-0. Porter, 143-7. Kirk, 620-7 and figures on 388 sq. Ladd, 
346, 367 (Pressure spots). Bain, 175 sqq. Dewey, 47-59. 

Hearing. — Sonorous vibrations are the physical anteced- 
ents of the sensation of hearing. The complicated organ 
which receives the impressions — the Ear, external and in- 
ternal, is fully described in text-books of Physiology, cf . 
Kirk, 640 sq. and 652 (figure), — and Ladd, 185 sq. 

It is not known how the different vibrations affect the 
nerves so differently. Some suppose that there is a differ- 
ent nerve filament for every audible pitch, the ear being a 
kind of keyboard ; others, that sounds differ in pitch 
according to the length of the vibrations, — which, how- 
ever, is rather an hypothesis in physics than in neurology. 

The sensations are noises and musical sounds. Ladd • 
quotes Hensen as dividing the former into '' beats, or 
pulsations, Avhich disturb the purity of musical tones,' 
^'^ the crackle, crash, or crack,'' and ^'hissing sounds." 
These, in combination with various musical sounds " make 
up the noises which we hear." 

Musical sensations differ in strength, or intensity, accord- 
ing to the breadth of vibrations, in pitch, according to 



30 GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

the number of vibrations in a second, and in quality, 
or tone, (Klangfarbe,) according to the number of the 
secondary, accompanying, notes, overtones. (After Helm- 
holtz.) 

Unlike touch, this sense yields little if any data for 
spatial knowledge, — has no distinct localizing power, — 
save as it combines with the muscular sense, and even 
then, as is seen in our efforts to trace the direction of 
sounds as we turn our heads this way and that, the power 
is slight. But the sensations occur distinctly in succes- 
sion, and so have important bearing on our knowledge of 
time. The remarkable sensitiveness of the ear is seen in 
the ease with which we discriminate between the tones of 
the musical scale. 

All knowledge of the external derived through this 
sense, is inferential, but its importance to our later 
knowledge is seen in its relation to language, thought, 
and the emotional life, as expressed in sound. 

Murray, 46 sq. Sully, 125 sq. Bernstein, c. Dewey, 63 sq. Bain, 
205-222. Ladd, 315-324. Kirk, 656. Porter, 140-3. 

Sight. — The wonderful mechanism of the eye may be 
found described in the proper text-books. 

(cf. Ladd, 171 sq. Kirk, 660 sq.) The independence 
of the fibres of the optic nerve, all the way to the brain, 
gives fullest scope for independent excitation. Light is 
the stimulus, — but the rods and cones alone react to it 
(Kirk, 683). 

The sensations are those of pure light and of color. 

The former have various degrees of intensity, but are 
simple, — those of pure light. 

The latter vary in tone and depth. Tone expresses the 
position of the color in the scale called the spectrum ; 
depth is applied to the comparative darkness or lightness 
of the various tints. Saturation is used to express the 



GEIS'ERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 31 

same fact, as the variety is due to the amount of pure 
light with which the color is mingled, — or saturated. 

To account for the method of stimulation which yields 
this variety of colors, several theories are advanced, — the 
two principal of which are that of Young and Helmholtz, 
and that of Hering. According to the former there are 
three fundamental colors, green, red, and violet, — and all 
others are due to combinations of these. There are also 
three kinds of nerve fibres, which react, severally, to 
these. 

Many difficulties stand in the way of this widely accept- 
ed theory. It is not shown e. g. that there are three 
specific kinds of nerve fibres. If the theory is true the 
narrowing of a ray of light to the smallest possible part of 
the retina should give us sensations of purest color, — but 
the result is almost the loss of color. 

Color blindness would then mean the loss, or destruc- 
tion, of one kind of fibre, — a most difficult supposition. 
(After Ladd and Wundt.) 

Bering's theory supposes six fundamental colors, in 
three related couples, — black and white, green and red, 
yellow and blue. The members of each pair are supposed 
to awaken opposite sensations by action on the same sensi- 
tive point. This does not seem to remove the difficulties 
suggested above. (After Ladd. — The general statement 
gives this theory four fundamental colors, black and white 
being omitted.) 

Wundt objects to the attempt of these scientists to base 
theories chiefly on the nature of the retina and nerve- 
endings, and advances one which lays stress chiefly on the 
various excitations due to the varied lengths of the waves 
of light. Every such excitation involves a chromatic and 
achromatic process. Ladd says that the facts show that 
we must assume comlinations of elements to explain color- 
sensations, and that this is decisive against AVundt's theory 



32 GEJ^^EEAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

which is based on processes producing ''changes qualita- 
tively alike and arranged in a continuous series/' 
(Wundt, I, 455. Ladd, 341-2). 

The discriminating power of this sense is remarkable, 
and its worth in the building up of knowledge inestimable. 
Two stars can be distinguished apart at 30" interval, 
though that is unusual. Two lines were distinguishable 
by Weber when covering 73" of the angle of vision, 
by Helmholtz at 64". (After Ladd.) (See fuller facts 
and tables in Wundt, 2 : 64, 65.) (Bain, p. 236.) 

Most of the data of knowledge furnished by this sense 
are due to its combination with the muscular sense. This 
will be more clearly seen in the treatment of Perception. 

cf. also what is said of Local Signs. — pp. 19, 30. 

On the general subject, see Ladd, 325 sq. Bain, 332 sq. Bern- 
stein, c. 5. Baldwin, 93 sq. Murray, 54 sq. Dewey, 68 sq. 
Porter, 153 sq. Sully, 139 sq. On the theories of Hering, and 
Young-Helmholtz, Kirk, 695 sq., Ladd, 839 sq., Baldwin, 95, 
Sully, 133, Bernstein, , Wundt, 451 sq. 

The object of this section has been to indicate the ele- 
ments of knowledge, and the inferences to be drawn from 
the study of them. But it should be remembered that 
they are known only by the analysis of knowledge : they 
are not knowledge. There is an impression, and a sub- 
jective reaction to this. The soul receives and awakens. 
The material of knowledge is here, without which the in- 
tellectual powers would be helpless, inert, but knowledge 
comes only as the mind organizes and localizes these sensa- 
tions. We are brought thus to the processes of the in- 
tellectual life. 

II. The Processes. 

As has been already indicated, we reach sensations only 
by analysis of the fact of knowledge. But the same 
analysis discovers to us certain processes by which these 



GE]S"ERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 33 

elements of mental life become combined, and form the 
patent phenomena of mental life. The simplest percep- 
tion, as we shall see, involves association of like elements, 
comparison of former experiences, memory therefore. 
These processes are all clearly defined in all text-books of 
psychology, but not so generally a process more elementary 
than any of these, the fundamental process of mental life. 

That energy of the mind is referred to which, in its 
fully develojoed iorm. is commonly now called apperception, 
a primitive, elementary, power of individualization, ob- 
jectification, localization. It may be called Initial Per- 
ception, though there are evident and grave objections to 
the term, as involving the process with the later product. 

Sensation, as has been seen, is wholly passive, but it 
arouses instant activity, a response to the awakened feel- 
ing, and this response takes the form of an immediate, 
though doubtless a very vague objectifying and localizing 
of the sensation. Until this stage of action is reached in 
infant life the child cannot be said to have more than an 
automatic, or reflex, psychical existence. But many of his 
earliest actions discover more than this. When, for ex- 
ample, the child of seven weeks, spoken of by Perez, ac- 
companies his manifest disgust at his medicine with certain 
movements **■ unconsciously repellant," there is a vague, 
but a real, objectifying of sensations. It must be remem- 
bered that the child is only learning to co-ordinate move- 
ments in response to his vague mental experiences, but the 
eifort itself is an evidence of a spontaneous objectifying of 
sensations. When, in the course of the first week an in- 
fant begins to distinguish between day and night, and soon 
thereafter follows with his eye a moving candle, there is 
assuredly revealed already the initial fundamental process 
of localization, which is admitted by Perez as occurring at 
the end of the fourth week. The same writer secured 
evident attention from a child of seventeen days, but that 



34 GENEKAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

evidences the activity of soul which is here emphasized, 
though in a very simple form.* The attention of an in- 
fant is secured for a moment, and relapses, and is again 
secured, but all attention involves some discrimination, 
and all the efforts of the child, due to this attention, seem 
to be given to the co-ordinating of the sensations and of 
the movements resulting. The importance of this fact is 
evident, whether the first localization is in the child's own 
body, or in an external world, for in either case there is a 
definite feeling of unlikeness between subject and object. 

But it must be remembered that the infant, even more 
truly than the adult, is receiving not single sensations, but 
a great variety of simultaneous sensations, and that this 
tendency to objectify, or localize, implies therefore a power 
of synthesis. Indeed the development of knowledge, 
through *'the association of ideas,'' depends altogether 
upon a fundamental act of synthesis. Sensations must 
have been first grouped in wholes, and wholes grasped in 
their relationship, before the process we name association 
can go on. 

It will be seen that the question here is not as to the 
consciousness of self, in any really developed form, the 
apprehension of one's distinct personality. It is solely a 
question as to the first discoverable form of mental ac- 
tivity, and we find this synthetical and localizing function 
as clearly revealed in our analysis of knowledge, as we do 
the sensation as the element of knowledge. Both are dis- 
covered by analvsis, but the activity is even more necessary 
to our explanation of thought than the elements. There 
is no subsequent process which does not involve this, and 
our a priori anticipation of its existence finds confirma- 



*When a child shows his satisfaction after taking his nourishment, 
and recognizes its source, there is assuredly an objectificatiou, even if 
vague. 



GEITERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 35 

tion in the observed processes of the infant mind, and in 
the analj'Sis of our mature knowledge.* 

No effort is made here to indicate the activity of this 
function of the soul in any but its most elementary form. 
Its development will be seen in every stage of mental 
growth, and in every observed mental process. In the 
three fundamental processes we are about to consider, in 
Association of Ideas, in Memory, and in Comparison, this 
function is always active. It is, indeed, the soul's primary, 
essential activity. 

Refs. This point has not been clearly set forth in the general text- 
books, and indeed, in its first, initial, stage, this activity has been little 
treated of. But the student may find suggestions in Perez, pp. 15, 
26, 29, 32 sq. Porter, 127-8, 130, 218-220, &c. (p. 178). Janes, 55- 
57. Especially Dewey, 84 sq. Baldwin, 65 sq. Lotze, 42. Ladd, 
386 sq. Wundt, II, 219 and 305 (441 +). Carpenter, 176 sq. Bowne, 
280. 

of. also, Martineau, Study of Relig., 1: 175. 

of. Ward, art. Psych., Encyc. Brit., 20 p. 47 on attention, cf. 
table, &c., on 44. Baldwin, p. 84. 

cf . it with Attuition (true also of animals ?), as used by Laurie. 

Association. 

If the mental factors thus far considered made up the 
total of the mind's life, no growth of knowledge would be 
possible. 

There would be but the grouping and objectifying of 
sensations, — and the known fact of one instant would pass 
away, giving place to the next object presented. Knowl- 
edge would consist, that is, in presentations only. Ee- 
presentations, — the recalling and re-grouping of former 
mental experiences would be unknown. One has only to 



* Preyer thinks the Ichgef iihl comes late, near end of second year, 
but others think they see signs of separation of common leelings and 
those due io external world, at three months. Seele des Kindes, p. 
393. 



36 GEI^ERAL PSTCHOLOCxY. 

reflect, therefore, on the supreme place held in our mental 
life by mental states, or ideas, representing former experi- 
ences, and to recall the dependence of mental progress on 
the associations of these and the suggestions growing out 
of them, to appreciate the supreme place in the study of 
mind of association, which is the name for the combina- 
tion of former experiences with present, and with other 
precedent states. 

Th.Qfact of Association needs only to be referred to. 
Illustrations will spring at once to every mind. The class- 
room suggests the class, the teacher, the lesson or lecture, 
other experiences with classmates, other lectures, — a broad 
and unceasing flow of thoughts, or recollections. Or it 
may suggest vacation, home, friends, games, days of in- 
dolence instead of work. Our whole life is made up of 
these associations of ideas. An author's name suggests 
his books, times, personal life, controversies, contempor- 
aries. A black dog, running at large, reminds one of the 
Auerbach Keller, Faust, Goethe, Weimar. One cannot 
tell how far a suggestion may range. 

We shall learn, also, as we study our perceptions, how 
much the simplest fact of knowledge depends on associa- 
tion. Why do we call this fruit an apple instead of a 
pear ? The answer will be found to involve a process of 
association. And when Groethe enunciates the phyllotac- 
tic law, it will be found, again, that association is at the 
base of his reasoning. All comlination of ideas and ex- 
periences illustrates it, all growth, therefore, in science, 
art, philosophy, invention. The simplest mental experi- 
ence of the clown, and the profoundest generalization of 
the philosopher, alike involve it. 

A casual glance over mental life would convey the im- 
pression that the experiences of association are chaotic, 
whimsical, disorderly. A little reflection, however, leads 
us to see that according to principles, or laws, tracable 



GEI^^ERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 37 

through all this apparent disorder, the mind associates its 
vast and continuous experiences. 
What are these principles, or laws ? 

1. The first principle derived from an examination of 
the facts is this : The mind tends to reproduce states 
which it has already experienced and in the way in which 
they form^ed part of the previous mental life. 

That is, two states occur together in consciousness ; 
they thus form one whole. 

A horse and a carriage may have been often seen to- 
gether, — and the thought, or presence, of the one suggests 
the other because the mind tends to integrate the parts of 
what has already been a total in its life. Horse and car- 
riage have, indeed, become one idea, and one part of the 
idea instantly recalls the other part. The idea may be 
much more complex. A day which marked a crisis in life, 
every act of which was related to the crucial event, is held 
as a whole in memory, and one part of it tends to bring 
back all the rest. 

This is in substance the Law of Redintegration of Sir 
William Hamilton, — the Law of Totality, — but his law is 
too generally expressed as if the associating power were in 
the ideas instead of in the mind itself. 

Hamilton, Lects, 31, 32 (pp. 431-5). Bowen's H.,428. Hamilton's 
E-eid, Note D, xxx. Augustine. Confessions, X., xix. Porter, p. 282. 
Baldwin, 201. Lotze, Microcosmus, 1 : 216. Bowne, 87 sq. cf. 
Dewey, 90. Wundt, 305. 

2. A careful analysis of these associated ideas which 
come thus into consciousness, reveals certain general prin- 
ciples in the associating activity. Hamilton has indicated 
seven classes to which philosophers have reduced these 
principles. Ideas are associated : ^^ 1st, If coexistent, or 
immediately successive, in time ; 2d, If their objects are 
conterminous, or adjoining, in space ; 3d, If they hold to 



38 GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

each other relation of cause and effect, mean and end, 
whole or part ; 4th, If they stand in the relation either of 
contrast or similarity ; 5th, If they are operations of the 
same power, or of different powers conversant about the 
same object ; 6th, If their objects are the sign and the 
signified ; 7th, Even if their objects are accidentally de- 
noted by the same sound/' 

Aristotle reduced these to Contiguity in time and space. 
Resemblance, and Contrast. These are still further re- 
ducible to two, as will be seen, Similarity, or Resemblance, 
and Contiguity (called Affinity and Simultaneity by Hamil- 
ton.) A glance over the seven principles enumerated 
above will show the possibility of reducing them to Aris- 
totle's classification, and the study of that will reveal 
the presence of but two fundamental principles. 

(a.) Similarity. — The mind turns from one object to an- 
other like it. The black dog suggests the dog in Faust. 
The taste of vanilla may suggest the smell of heliotrope. 
The fall of the apple suggests the motion, and so the law, 
of other falling bodies. The principle is of widest reach. 
It is illustrated in the recognition of a man from his por- 
trait, of a fruit from the appearance and taste, as similar 
to one known before, or in the hidden likenesses which lead 
to scientific classifications, or to philosophical deductions 
from the study of facts or events. Here, too, we find the 
principle underlying contrast, to which Aristotle gave a 
separate place. Contrast depends on similar elements in 
the things contrasted. We contrast black and white, for 
example, because both are colors, in the popular sense, and 
a horse and a mule, because of common anatomical attri- 
butes, but we do not contrast a horse and a color. 

The great importance of this principle to the growth of 
knowledge is seen in the reference to its bearing on classi- 
fications and philosophic deductions from them. It is 
the perception of the inner, deeper, likeness among things 



GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 39 

else unrelated which lies at the base of new ideas in phil- 
osophy and new discoveries in science. Bain has well ob- 
served that this is the principle of Invention. The stu- 
dent may recall the importance of ^^ analogy" as insisted 
upon by Bacon. 

(5.) Contiguity. — Objects, or events, though having no 
intrinsic relation, occur together and together are present- 
ed to the mind. 

The mind tends thereafter to recall them together. It 
may be a collocation of sounds, — and one word recalls an- 
other, and so another, as having been learned together, — 
or one note recalls the piece of music, part by part. It 
may be a body of facts, learned together, or a number of 
objects seen together, or a series of ideas thought to- 
gether. The impression made upon our senses simul- 
taneously, are likely to occur again together to the mind. 

The simplest form of this contiguous association is that 
which is based on local, relation. Several things have 
presented themselves to our sight at the same time. Only 
one may have especial interest to us, — but all are seen at 
once. The recalling of one of the objects may recall all. 

Or certain events are connected with certain localities. 
Jerusalem brings to mind the world's great tragedy, — or it 
awakens thoughts of the efforts to win the Moslem city 
to Christian rule. ISTuremburg recalls Diirer. Eome sug- 
gests thoughts of every time, of Empire and of Church, 
and every single thought may awaken a chain of others 
which have been connected before in consciousness. 

Or, still again, certain events, or places, have inspired 
particular and intense feelings, which are always after re- 
lated to them. So one^s native country stirs patriotic 
feeling, the flag awakens national pride. Mt. Vernon 
recalls Washington, and awakens reverence for his virtues. 

It will be seen, upon slight reflection, that the relation 
of cause and effect, whole and part, sign and signified, &c. 



40 GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

(cf. p. 38), is not a separate principle, but is reducible to 
this of Contiguity. Cause and effect come together into 
experience, — and so do all correlates. When one is 
thought of the other is implied, and appears in conscious- 
ness. 

These two principles therefore cover all mental experi- 
ences, as they deal with all things that are alike and with 
all that differ. They are accordingly often called the 
Primary Laws of Association, — by Hamilton Laws of 
Direct and Indirect Eeproduction, by Wundt Innere 
(inner) & Aiissere (external) Association. 

Hamilton, pp. 430 sq. Mansel, Psych., 235 sq. Sully, 234 sq. 
Dewey, 98-105. Hill, 69-74. Murray, 74-86. Baldwin, 194-200. 
Porter, 276 sq. Wundt, 2 : 300 sq Lotze, Microcosmus, 1 : 211 sq. 
McCosh, Cognitive Powers. Bain, Senses and Intellect, 332 sq. cf. 
Lindner, p. 67. Bowne, pp. 87 sq. Perez, 131-147. 

It remains to ask whether it may be possible to reduce 
Contiguity to Similarity, or vice versa. Contiguity has 
been declared to be the fundamental principle by Hartley, 
Hobbes, Mill, and more recently by Ward, and Baldwin, 
who, however, thinks that it is by reflection that we re- 
duce similarity to contiguity, — and that the former is, 
empirically, found to be true also, though not an ultimate 
principle. Hamilton laid great stress on Similarity, and 
Spencer argues for the reduction of Contiguity to it. 
When a portrait calls up the image of my friend, for 
example, the similar element is the essential one, — and 
his characteristics, and other associations with him, are 
dependent on this. 

Ward says the similar element is not an association at 
all. ax h calls up j9.t q. The a; is a common element, but 
the real association is in the revival of the accompani- 
ments p and q. This is contiguous association (After 
Sully). 



GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 41 

There seems to be good reason for holding to the two 
principles as diverse. They involve different experiences. 
The recognition of a common element is unlike that of the 
contiguous. Another feeling accompanies the experience. 

The possibility of reducing them to apparent unity, now 
from one side and now from the other, suggests rather 
that they are both but expressions of the fundamental 
principle of Totality, or Redintegration, above considered. 

cf. Especially, Sully, 267-8. Ward's opinion is quoted by him 
from an unpublished paper. Spencer, Psych., 1 : 267-9. Baldwin, 
196-7. Bain, (who declares these totally distinct powers of the 
mind,) — Senses and Intellect, pp. 325 sq. Dewey, 97 and 103. ('* Con- 
tiguity passes into similarity.") Robertson, Encyc. Brit. art. " Asso- 
ciation," (vol. 2 : 733) argues strongly for the two principles as 
ultimate. James 1 : 590 says similarity is not elementary. 

3. While it is thus possible to define the broad outlines 
of this activity of the soul, these principles so discovered 
do not explain the actual experiences of association. They 
show that all associated ideas must come under their sway, 
but they do not explain the fact that among the ideas 
associated at any given time we afterward recall some and 
fail to recall others, — while on another occasion still other 
parts of our former experience are prominent, and those 
parts once recalled are no longer in consciousness. 

Why do we recall one part of a series rather than 
another ? Why do we find some ideas so much more 
suggestive than others ? Why do apparently the most 
trivial circumstances, seemingly unrelated, even, to our 
present course of thought, spring suddenly into conscious- 
ness, and puzzle us as to their relation to our present 
mental experiences ? If the principles thus far pointed 
out show us how all forms of associated activity are 
governed, we must still ask why, among all related states 
which might come into consciousness, the particular 
present conscious states have come. 



42 GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

For example, the name of Washington is suggested^ 
Colonial life in Virginia, Thackeray, the Esmonds, Brad- 
dock, Indian warfare, Colonial legislatures, Washington as 
a statesman, the Constitutional Convention, Gladstone's 
view of the Constitution, Valley Forge, the Forged Let- 
ters, Political Slanders ; there is no limit to the thoughts 
which may spring unbidden from the name. Why, among 
these indefinite possibilities, do I recall a particular series of 
impressions? why are certain '^ associations" more likely 
to come up than others ? Among the infinite complex of 
mental states, what determines the suggestion of this or 
that ? 

Three general principles may be laid down as covering 
the known facts. 

1. Intensity of interest in the object or thought pre- 
sented. This is often discussed as if intensity were in- 
volved in the sensation itself, or in the object awakening 
it. It really describes the absorbing interest which the 
mind takes in the object, and may depend upon both men- 
tal and physical conditions, (cf. Lotze, Outlines, pp. 31- 
35). Inherited tendencies may predispose the mind to 
closer attention to one form of interests than to another. 
Cultivated tendencies may lead us to single out particular 
lines of complex experience. What we call ^'^ natural 
bent," and *' taste," have large share in determining this. 
The mind iwefers one object to another. 

Porter's suggestion should be noted here. This preference 
Brown's 9th principle) applies pri7narily not to associated 
states, but to the original presentation on which they are 
based. It is the preference of the soul at that time which 
determines the more frequent appearance of the idea after- 
wards. 

Preference, however, is but one reason for intensity of 
interest. We hold ourselves, by act of will, to a subject 
before us. Interest grows ; the mind is attentive j the 



GEiq-ERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 43 

subject is impressed upon memory. All study illustrates 
this. 

Again, certain conditions of life, inyolving great pleas- 
ure or pain, may give intensity to our mental activities so 
that they attend more vividly to every fact associated with 
the experience. In nervous and exhausted condition of 
body we are accordingly apt to attach too great importance 
to trivial things associated with our daily work, and change 
of scene, destroying, for a time, the old associations, and 
suggesting new ones, becomes necessary. 

There would seem to be an exception to this principle 
in the frequent experience of forgetfulness of work care- 
fully analyzed, clearly thought out and even written and 
published. It is often impossible to recall the analysis or 
even the general line of thought. This is due to a later 
absorption of all the activities of the soul in other in- 
terests, and to the fact that the old subject has not been 
recently in consciousness. This brings us to the prin- 
ciple of 

Recent 7iess,^oiiQn stated as separate, but really depend- 
ing on this of intensity. Recent objects are recalled and 
associated because the mind is not yet absorbed in other 
experiences. In old age the recent becomes dim, and the 
events of youth, when everything had fuller value to the 
soul, and awakened keener interest, fill the mental horizon. 

Another element, however, enters into this last phe- 
nomena, and brings us to the second principle. 

2. Repetition. The events of youth, the associations of 
fact and thoughts of all our early years, are likely to be 
recalled again and again, to be talked over, or rehearsed in 
memory, and so to be kept fresh in their suggestiveness. 
This is certainly to be added to the intensity of early im- 
pressions as explanatory of the experiences of old age. 

In all voluntary memory, in every effort to commit a 
poem, to learn a lesson, to keep in mind facts or figures for 



44 GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

immediate use, we are familiar with the application of this 
principle. And so a series of thoughts or pictures, kept 
before the mind by frequent repetition, is likely to spring 
quickly into consciousness at the suggestion of any part of 
it, or of the conditions under which it was formed. 

This principle of repetition becomes more important as 
we follow it into the realm of uniform association, and 
habit. 

Uniform Association. 

When a series of mental acts has been repeated again 
iri the smne order, the tendency of the mind is to recall 
them in that order. We learn the Alphabet, for example, 
and repeat it with great rapidity from A to Z, but are 
unable to say it from Z to A without much difficulty. 
The letters and sounds have formed a uniform association 
in our minds, — to sight and hearing, and muscular ex- 
pression. So a piece of music may be learned mechani- 
cally, and after a long interval be played again if the 
player begins with the first note, but it is often impossible 
to recall it in any other way. The association is orderly, 
uniform, — and the mind has not cognized its several parts 
save in their place in an orderly whole. The same ex- 
perience has been noted by all of us in learning a passage 
from any author by heart. 

This repetition of a uniform association may go on until 
the relations of the various parts become so intimate that 
one part cannot be in consciousness without the other. 
Then we have what has been called Irresistible and 
Instantaneous, or Inseparable, Association. Every fixed 
habit, physical or intellectual, illustrates this principle. 
Indeed Hume endeavored to show that all our notions of 
the fixed relations of things, and fundamentally, our very 
idea of cause and effect, was but the outgrowth of this 
" custom,^^ — an invariable association repeated until the 
first suggestion of it brings instantly the whole train into 



GEI^EKAL PSYCHOLOGY. 45 

view. I start for my office. I am unconscious of my 
regular movements in walking, — I do not even think of my 
purpose, — I chat with a friend, or think of some subject 
of the day, — and I find myself at my destination. Has 
body, arid has mind, worked automatically ? What 
relation has this whole movement to my voluntary life ? 
Every acquired dexterity suggests the same problem, and 
in a minor sphere it is illustrated when one picks up a 
fruit and names the complex of sensations resulting an 
apple or a pear. 

The question has been answered in three ways : 1st, by 
the denial of the mind's active or voluntary intervention ; 
it is automatic (Eeid and Hartley) ; 2d, It is asserted that 
each several motion is due to a separate conscious volition 
(Stewart) : 3d, The mind has conscious volition over a 
series, but not over each separate movement (Hamilton ; 
Murray). 

These theories are designed to cover cases of association 
where the links are lost sight of and the mind grasps the 
first and last members of the series, as well as those result- 
ing in habits and dexterities. 

The first is objectionable in its statement as excluding all 
mental initiation, and as removing the state into the realm 
of the physical. And yet its central principle may be so 
included in the third theory as to render it substantially 
true. The real question as to the mind^s relation to the 
series is not, however, touched here. 

The second theory is objected to, by Hamilton, on the 
ground that every conscious volition must involve memory, 
and no memory is known here. Porter denies the justice 
of Hamilton's position, and thinks analogy is with Stew- 
art. When, for example, F suddenly and strangely fol- 
lows A, we can recall, if we try at once, intervening links, 
B, C, D, E. The clue will fall from us immediately, but 
sometimes can be recovered by persistent effort. Memory 



46 GEE^ERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

is faint, here, indeed, but corresponds to faint conscious- 
ness. He thinks that Hamilton's ^' latent modifications 
of conciousness " comes to the same thing. Mill says of 
this same statement of Hamilton's that evanescent memory 
is enough for evanescent consciousness. 

These criticisms have weight against the line of Hamil- 
ton's defense of the third theory. He argues from the 
minimum visibile: an object cannot come into conscious- 
ness unless it is of a certain size, and so a certain dura- 
tion is essential to the least consciousness ; the minimum 
visibile, though indivisible, yet effects its impresssion by 
the conjoined effects of its parts, and so the protended 
parts of each constant instant, though beyond the ken of 
consciousness, must contribute to give the character to the 
whole mental state which that instant comprises. 

This argument of Hamilton may be rejected without re- 
jecting his theory. His doctrine of latent consciousness 
need not detain us here, but it may be said that in fact no 
modification of consciousness takes place until the stimu- 
lus is sufficient to awaken it, and then it is not " latent." 
The waves keep beating on the shore : every small wave is 
not perceived, nor is consciousness awakened at all until 
the sum has become enough to stimulate the auditory 
nerves. Then we have a conscious state, but not a sum of 
latent consciousnesses. 

The third theory, however, is shown to be the true one 
by the application of this principle of repetition, and the 
resulting uniform, and then irresistible, association. There 
is no slightest consciousness of the combination of color, 
form, and taste which we gradually associated in a new 
fruit till we determined its class, after we have become 
familiar with it. So in the act of walking, every move- 
ment of which once required conscious energy, we no 
longer know the separate movements. So with any dex- 
terity. Every movement suggests so instantly the one al- 



GEI^EEAL PSYCHOLOGY. 47 

ways following it, and that the next, that they have been 
gradually Avelded into a whole, and the first sensation starts 
the train. We are conscious of that and its train, as a 
traiiij but not of its individual parts, no one of which per- 
sists long enough to make a distinct impression. So the 
rapid whirl of the spectrum of colors produces white light, 
and we have no consciousness, even latent, of red and blue 
and green. 

Hamilton, Lects., 18 and 19 (cf. p. 439 sq). Murray's Hamilton 
sums this up succinctly (pp. 100 sq.)- See also Bowen's ed. of H., pp. 
432 sq. 

Stewart, 2 : 226 sq. Elements, 165 sq. Porter, 289-296. 

Mills' Exam, of Hamilton, vol. 2, c. I. cf . Hill, 92 sq. Baldwin, 
56. Bascom, 34 sq. Kir]c, 533. 

3. Feeling. We must also take into account, here, the 
obscure, but important, action of the emotional nature. 
That feeling largely influences our processes of thought 
is manifest enougn. But may not the feeling which ac- 
companies any cognition be itself an occasion of the recall 
not of similar or contiguous feelings merely, but of 
thoughts and events in no way related to our present ex- 
periences unless by a connecting link of similar emotions ? 
No other explanation can be suggested of the appearance 
of certain events suddenly in consciousness which have no 
discoverable relations to any present thoughts, occupations 
or interests. 

Dewey, 105-6. Porter, 282-3. Murray, 349-50. Bowne, 95, 96. 

Perhaps here, after all, we have the suggestion of the 
most abiding associations, and the key to the mysterious, 
if real realm, called subconscious. The element of feeling 
may be the most suggestive and far-reaching of the soul. 

Refs. on the secondary laws ; Brown, Lect.. 37. Murray, 86-104. 
Dewey, 117-131. Bowne, 88 sq. Baldwin, 202-3. Porter, 286 sq. 
Hill, 74. Hamilton's statement is given chiefly from his papers, by 



48 GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Mansel, and was never fully worked out. It is not dissimilar from 
Murray's own classification, but the terminology is confusing, of. 
Murray's Hamilton, pp. Ill sq. Hodgson, Time and Space, 273 sq., 
reduces the laws of association closely. 

Theories offered in explanation of the facts : 

(A) Physiological. 

According to this theory connections are established, by 
the various impressions made on the nervous system, 
between the various nerves, and among the myriad cells. 
One cell excited pushes another into consciousness, and 
another mechanically follows, — and so on indefinitely. 
The cells are modified in their substance by ideas, and 
become even the repository of ideas. Maudsley writes as 
if cells have intelligence. He says there is '' memory in 
every cell and in every organic element of the body " 
(182), and writes of organic elements as remembering, as 
seen in the permanent effects of virus, in smallpox. He 
lays chief stress on the connections of nerve cells, and says 
the activity of one is communicated to another. This con- 
nection, and the limitations of individual experience, he 
calls the limits of association. 

Bain finds the growth of mental habit to be like the 
development of nerves and muscles, either by the forming 
of new cells, or in the modification of the internal con- 
ducting power of nerve fibres and vescicles, — or both. 
(339). '' Renewed feelings occupy the very same parts, 
and in the same manner as the original feeling, and no 
other parts nor in any other manner,^" (344). That is, the 
same circlet of nerves is set in motion throughout the 
system. 

Hartley's theory was crude, but is suggestive. Borrow- 
ing from Newton and Locke the doctrines of vibrations 
and association, he declared that the former were motions 
back and forth of small particles ^^ conceived to be exceed- 
ingly short and small, ^^ so as not to move the whole bodies 



GE^^ERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 49 

of nerves or brain, as in case of a musical string. The 
perfection of mind depends on the white medullary 
substance of the brain. 

External objects impress sensory nerves, excite vibra- 
tions in ether residing in pores of the nerves, the vibra- 
tions of this agitate the small particles of medullary sub- 
stance of the nerves, which substance is continuous, soft, 
and active, and these vibrations are propagated along to 
the brain, in the medullary substance. On entering the 
brain they are propagated freely in every direction. The 
magnitude of sensation depends on the vibrations in this 
substance in the brain. Sensations repeated often, leave 
certain images of themselves, or vestiges, which may be 
called simple images of sensation. These create tendency 
to '^ diminutive vibrations,"^ '^ miniatures,"" corresponding 
to them, and when these are associated a sufficient number 
of times they get such power over their " miniatures " 
that one can call up the rest. 

This physiological explanation often underlies that to be 
next referred to, the chemical, or molecular, — as its real 
basis. Naturally it leads to the assumption that all 
mental powers and acts are modes of association, and that 
this and a sentient principle are all that is required to 
make man what he is. But to ask these is to ask much 
(cf. Mansel, p. 246 sq.). 

In reply to every theory of this kind it may be said. 

{a.) That although we fully admit an organic activity, 
corresponding to the psychical activity of association, and 
believe that certain nerve changes and adaptations may 
take place rendering the response to mental action easier, 
yet the activity of association is mental and not physio- 
logical. 

{h.) There is no physiological evidence of changes in 
cells, or of such new adaptations as are claimed, resulting 
in associative (psychical) activities. All that we know of 



50 GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

the relation of psychical and physical is against the theory 
that the psychical association results from physiological 
connection. 

(c.) The cellular theory of ideas is inconceivable. The 
number of cells requisite for all ideas, and changes of 
ideas, points the extravagance of the hypothesis. 

(d.) A great portion of our thoughts, and associative 
experiences are not due to mere mental reactions, but to 
the positive energy of our wills. The cell-theory does not 
seem to suggest an explanation of that fact. 

(e.) There is no suggestion of an explanation here of our * 
recognition of knowledge so recalled. Mere repetition, 
recurrence, would be explained if the theory were true, 
but not the knowledge that the recurrent had been in 
mind before. 

(/.) The duality of the brain would seem to increase the 
difficulty of imagining the relations suggested in this 
theory, and to intensify the complexity of them. This is 
especially true if it be held that related centres, employed 
with the same activities, are in each brain. 

cf . Brown's remarks on Hartley's form of the theory, Sect. 43 (vol. 
2 : 397). Hartley, Observations, c. 1 (Prop. 2, 5, 8, 9, 10, 13). Bain, 
825 sqq. Maudsley, 121 sq., cf. 97 and 182 Bowne, Pt. 1, c. 3, 
and app. to 3. cf. Baldwin, 193-4, and Hill, 73-4. James thinks 
Hartley was on the right track. Association depends on mechanical 
conditions, he says, I, c. 14. 

{B.) Chemical, or Molecular. 

This deals rather with the relations of ideas than 
physical states but too often approaches physiological 
ground. Its language, however, is that of chemistry. 
Ideas *' tend to cohere " (Carpenter) ; they have * ^affi- 
nity " for one another ; (Spencer) ; like the drops of water 
on the table they run together (Hobbes), or they coalesce, 
or attack, one another (Herbart). 



GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 51 

Spencer says feelings tend to unite themselves with 
feelings like in quality, but differing in intensity. '' The 
orderly structure of mind depends on this law of Com- 
position.''^ (183). Without it Mind would be a kaleid- 
oscopic change. We have ideas '^ because of this ten- 
dency which vivid feelings have severally to cohere with 
the faint forms of dll preceding feelings like themselves.-'' 
The simple sensation, " an integrated series of nervous 
shocks and units of feeling" is integrated with two or 
more such to form compound sensations. By integration 
of successive like sensations arises the knowledge of 
sensations as such or such : then resultant integrated 
clusters enter into higher integrations, and so on. 

Again he says that the '' cohering of each feeling with 
previously experienced feelings of the same class, order, 
genus, species, and so far as may be, with the same 
variety, is the sole process of association of feelings " 
(pp. 256-7). 

Herbart, who has so profundly influenced German 
thought, startL from a very different ground. He asserts 
the simplicity of the soul, originally even without plurality 
of states. The multitude of mental phenomena is due to 
reaction of the soul against external disturbances. '^ Pre- 
sentations '* act upon it. The soul has no inner tendency 
to pass from one state to another, and the passage of a 
presentation into unconsciousness can only be explained by 
the conflict of these presentations, and the subsidence of the 
weaker below the *^threshhold," as the stronger rises 
against it. The ideas are in themselves attractive or repel- 
lant, and their described contests are like real battles. 
(See Dr. Pick, a Herbartian, on Memory.) The strong 
will not admit the weak; they ^* repel" the latter. If 
of equal strength they *^ blend." This is the basis of as- 
sociation. 



52 GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

To these theories it may be answered, 

(1.) That ideas are not objects, or things, and only by 
the extravagance of rhetoric can be treated as they. are by 
Spencer or Herbart. They are psychical, states of con- 
sciousness. Such language as this quoted is an arbitrary 
use of the language of another and unrelated realm. 

(2.) The ''opposition^' and "conflicts" of ideas is, 
again, the use of language wholly inapplicable to psychical 
existence. My thought of black is not exclusive of my 
thought of white, as black is of white. Bowne may be 
approvingly quoted here : '*' this entire department of 
;psychology has been devastated by rhetoric. '^ 

(3.) No such association as is here pictured could ever 
give us ideas of relations between the things associated. 
That achievement of mental life must presuppose an active 
soul, a unit, but with plurality of states, not the simple 
soul of Herbart, nor the integrated clusters of Spencer. 

Spencer, I : 179 sq. Herbart (expounded in Ribot's German Psy- 
chology of To-day. c. 1, and Mind, July, 1888. cf. also Bowne, p. 
76 sq.) Hobbes' Leviathan, c. 3. Quotations from several authors 
in Porter, 285. cf. also, pp. 272 sq. Carpenter; 251 sq. Herbert, 
Modern Realism Examined, 232-247. 

There remains only the possibility of accepting the as- 
sociative function as an ultimate psychical fact, to be ex- 
plained only by the unity of the soul and its activity in 
uniting its experiences in wholes, i. e., relationally. As 
Lotze says, the character of this union cannot be explained. 
There is no analogue. The character of each future mo- 
ment depends on the total condition of the soul at any 
moment. But we cannot see all of this, peculiarities of 
bodily state, of frame of mind, of volition, of special 
mutual relations into which these are woven together. 
'' But even the least of the train of our ideas depends on 



GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 53 

nothing less than the sum of these conditions, due to the 
unity of the soul/' (Microcosmus, I, 215-219). 

Robertson's article in Encyc. Brit., 9th ed., on Association, is ex- 
cellent historically. 

ME:^roRY. 

The process of Association just considered has familiar- 
ized us with the phenomenon of Mental Eeproduction. 
That is, the mind, evidently, has power to reproduce former 
states, and it is the process of this reproduction which we 
have studied. But at this point we meet another phe- 
nomenon, involved in this. We recognized these repro- 
duced states as having been in our consciousness before. 
By an association of ideas there comes back to us an idea, 
or experience, which we had years ago, and we say, at 
once, ^' I have had that before."' 

K'ot only so, but we find ourselves making the effort to 
recall former states of consciousness, facts, dates, events, 
trains of thought, and we reproduce such states by our 
volition, in conformity with laws of association already 
discussed. Here we find the apperceptive element in- 
volved, as well as the associative. 

This is the mental process called Memory, involuntary 
or voluntary, the recognition of a past or revived ex- 
perience as one which we have had before. 

With his usual tendency to refined analysis Hamilton di- 
vides this process into Eetention, Reproduction, and 
Representation. He distinguishes Memory from Recol- 
lection, also, the one as the more conservative power, and 
the other as the reproductive. Memory is thus *' the con- 
dition of reproduction." 

But the only processes observable here are reproduction 
and recognition, and both are summed up in Memory. 
Retentiveness is not a part of conscious life, though it may 
be studied as a possible basis of memory. But it is not a 



54 GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

function, nor a phenomenon of conscious mental life, and 
is discussed only as an explanation of the basis of that life. 
Reproduction manifests itself in association, taking the 
various phases of creative imagination, phantasy, or simple 
recreation of old states, and Memory adds to it the single 
new phenomena of Recognition. 

cf. Porter, 300 sq. Bascom, 141-2. Bowne, 269. 

It will be seen at once, therefore, that all the Primary 
ard Secondary principles enumerated under Association 
have bearing on Memory, and all that contributes to the 
associative powers of the soul aids also in the cultivation 
of this faculty. This is seen in the types of memory de- 
pending on local association, resemblance, &c., as well as 
in the principles underlying its cultivation. 

The problem of Memory is therefore two-fold, the 
problem of Reproduction, already discussed, in part, un- 
der Association and the problem of Recognition. How 
do we reproduce mental states ? How does the soul 
retain ideas and trains of ideas ? How does it recognize 
the recalled idea as one already held in consciousness ? 

Theories of Retention. 

A. PsycJiological. 

(1.) Hamilton founded on the nature and activity of the 
soul, which is one and indivisible, the theory that this 
energy must persist in some form, and therefore the 
extinguishing of a cognition would be no less than the 
annihilation of a part of the Ego. The real problem 
would thus be, not how we remember, but how any mental 
activity ever vanishes. He resorts for explanation to the 
theory of latent modifications of mind, already referred to. 
There is no real loss, — and these latencies may become 
positive states through some unsuspected stimulus. He 
adds the fact of the distribution of mental energy through 
the various calls on our powers. We have only so much 



GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 55 

mental power, and its vivacity must grow less in one 
direction as it is demanded in another. 

{a.) This theory is pure hypothesis. We know nothing 
of a subconscious realm, — and when once an idea has left 
consciousness it is lost to us. Consciousness tells us of no 
sum of latencies. 

(b,) The theory is the application to mind of a law of 
Physics, and there is no sufficient evidence for the ex- 
tension of its sway. 

(c.) It is but a more refined expression for the '' store- 
liouse^^ of Cicero, — or *^the tablet," or for G-assendi's 
striking figure, quoted by Hamilton, ^^the folds in a 
piece of paper or cloth." 

(d.) It really adds nothing to the explanation of re- 
production, as in either case, whether there be latent 
modifications, or not, the same effort of mind, or power of 
mind, is requisite. 

(e.) It is based on the theory that ideas must be some- 
where retained, — i. e. they must exist when out of con- 
sciousness, and for this there is no evidence. 

See further in Bascom, 137. 

(2.) The Herbartiaa (illustrated by Dr. Pick). The 
basis of this system has been indicated on p. 61. The 
subconscious realm, below ^^ the threshhold," is not unlike 
Hamilton's sphere of latent modifications of consciousness, 
and is open to similar objections. 

The whole phraseology of ^* strong " and ^* weak " 
ideas, — of '^subsidence," &c., is figurative, strained, and 
fails, in any case to throw light on the subject. 

(3 ) Wundt's theory. The mind tends to do what it 
has once done, and so a habit is cultivated, a permanent 
■disposition. 

This certainly states the fact of reproduction, and is 
perhaps as hopeful a suggestion as can be made toward an 



56 GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

explanation of this ultimate fact of memory, on its re- 
i^roductive side. It simply assumes that the active mind 
itself possesses an energy to recall ^^revious states, and that 
it finds an instrument ready to its hand in a system more 
responsive because of use. He finds no explanation of 
association, or reproduction, which is psychical, in the 
associative working of the nervous system (2 : 319). 

B. Physiological. 

(a.) Maudsley may be taken as the extreme type. cf. 
what is said on p. 48. He asserts '^ the existence of 
memory in the nerve cells which lie scattered in the 
heart, in the intestinal walls, in those that are collected 
together in the spinal cord,'^ &c., &c. p. 182. 

Saint's theory is also expounded in his view of associa- 
tion, cf. p. 48 here. 

To this form of the theory all that was said on pp. 49," 50, 
applies. Even if the reproductive side of memory could 
thus be accounted for, the recognitive could not. But 
even the former is in no way explained by the theory. 

(b.) Another phase of the theory is presented by those 
who have no materialistic tendency, but who, while de- 
nying that the changes of the nervous system in any de- 
gree explain memory, yet find in that system a ground 
for retentiveness. 

Baldwin, e. g., holds that retention is physical, a modi- 
fication of brain and nerve structure or function, persist- 
ing and giving rise to physiological habit. He argues from 
persistence of scars, and virus of small-pox, and modifica- 
tion of muscular fibre by exercise, the semi-automatic 
character of co-ordinated movements. 

He meets objections as to the number of cells needed, 
saying a large brain contains about 600 millions, and even 
more fibres. And these elements may have many functions. 

The mental continuity, and unity, of mind are not af- 
fected by this, he claims, as we are dealing with states 



GEXERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 57 

whose lapse from consciousness cannot affect the unity of 
consciousness. 

The mental conditions of retention, he adds, are purely 
conditions, not retention itself, which is a physical fact. 
These are intensity, repetition, attention. 

The physiological disposition, then, is the first condi- 
tion of reproduction. " It (the physical process) deter- 
mines luliat I shall remember, the mental process Tioiu I 
shall remember it.^^ (165.) 

McCosh also makes retention depend on, (1) the state of 
the brain, and (2) on mental force in the original idea or 
feeling. 

So also Ladd (5^8 sq), but he insists that molecular, 
cell, development is not memory, not even ^'unconscious 
memory. ^"^ It suggests no explanation of it. Granting 
thepoiuer to rememler it might explain why I remember 
one thing rather than another, but it gives no explanation 
of this power, nor does it throw any light on the '• syn- 
thesis^^ of recognition. 

But even w^ith these just disclaimers does the hypothesis 
meet the demands of our knowledge ? 

{a.) ]N"ot withstanding Baldwin^'s statement it seems in- 
comprehensible to think that any cell, or group of cells 
could retain record of old impressions, and continue to re- 
ceive new ones perpetually. But either this must be true, 
or else the cells must be numerous enough for every single 
impression through all our various senses. This is in- 
credible. 

il.) If this part of the hypothesis can be stated credibly, 
even then the explanation of the relation of impressions 
on cells to active thought, or passive association, is not 
suggestible. 

(6-.) The theory would suggest a more vivid memory of 
those experiences which most impress the sensorium, and 
this is not true. 



58 GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

{d,) There is an implication in every such theory of the 
unconscious as an instrument transmitting sensations into 
the conscious (cf. Wundt), binding the presentations to- 
gether and so presenting them ready-bound to conscious- 
ness. 

Here, as elsewhere, we must insist on the close relation 
of mind and body, but our hypotheses must not outrun the 
facts. Physical habits are established, and that implies an 
increased readiness in every nerve to respond to a given 
stimulus. Such a preparedness of the body to respond to 
the soul is cultivated by all our life. But beyond that we 
can offer no explanation of their relationship. Physical 
retentiveness is thus a name for an increased sensibility to 
the demands of the soul. Memory is wholly psychical, 
and we gain no added light upon its nature by a study of 
the physical processes by which the instrument responds 
to its director. 

Xor is Memory especially affected by the affections of the 
bodily system. Its failure is more manifest to the ob- 
server, from its simple nature, but all the processes of the 
soul, reason, judgment, are limited by our conditions, and 
destroyed by diseases of the body. The striking features 
of aphasia, moreover, are more rationally explicable on 
psychological, than physiological, grounds. 

Recognition. 

The school of psychologists which has tried to construct 
all mental life out of associations, has found especial 
difficulty in explaining this essential feature of memory. 
No alliance of states, no cluster of feelings, however, 
much integrated, throws any light whatever on the fact 
that the reproduced state is recognized by me as one I have 
had before. This can only be explained by an abiding, 
and primary, unity of consciousness. Recognition is the 
grasp of past and present in a new state, a synthesis of old 
and new, — not a melting of one state into another, — but a 



GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 59 

conscious conjunction of the two. At no point comes out 
more clearly the consciousness of self, a unit, as different 
from the multitude of its states. 

The Cultivation of Memory. 

This depends primarily on the observation of the prin- 
ciples of association of ideas which we have called secon- 
dary. Intensity of interest, and repetition, are the two 
secrets of good memory. Attention is implied in this in- 
tensity. One can greatly help the memory by logical ar- 
rangement, careful analysis, and the habit of remembering, 
i. e , the practice of holding oneself responsible to remem- 
ber. The principles of contiguity and similarity must lie 
at the base of all '' systems of memory."" 

cf. Stewart, 2 : 392 sq. 

General refs. on Memory. Wundt, 2 : 318 sq. Hamilton, Lect.. 30 
(Bowen and Murray, also). Bascom, 131 sq. Bowne. 269 sq. 
Porter. 300 sq. Dewey, c. 6. Fitch, on Teaching, c. 5. Lotze, 135. 
Ladd 548sq. Sully. Baldwin, 152 sq. Brown, 2 : 350 sq. Stewart, 
2: 350 sq. McCosh, Bk. 2, cc. 1, 2, 4. Calderwood. Mind and 
Brain, c. 9. Carpenter, 436 sq. In Stewart vol. 2, note S, see Male- 
brance, Aristotle, Locke, Hobbes. Panygeric on Memory in Au- 
gustine, Confessions, Bk. 10, cc. YHI to XIX. 

Comparison. 

In all forms of the associating activity of the mind at- 
tention is given to related states, or ideas ; in Comparison 
the attention is given to the relations themselves. If two 
objects, for example, are held before the mind simultane- 
ously, they are judged to be like or unlike, and in com- 
parison the mind attends to the relation of likeness or un- 
likeness rather than to the objects themselves. One ob- 
ject may be suggested by another, in the associative j^ro- 
cess of mental life, and be thought of merely as following 
the other, without an affirmation of likeness or unlikeness. 
This is constantly illustrated in the association of ideas. 
But in Comparison the mind holds two ideas simultane- 



60 GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

ously, and makes its affirmation, or judgment, concerning 
them. 

It may be said, indeed, that a vagae sense, or judgment, 
of differeuce is involved in our knowing that the presenta- 
tions are Uuo. Or we may go still farther, and assert that 
in my consciousness of a single object over against me I 
compare myself with, and differentiate myself from, the ob- 
ject. That is, I affirm my own existence as separate from 
other existences, in the primary process of thought. But 
though Comparison may be traced back to this genesis, it 
is, as an observed jDrocess, in a developed form, a voluntary 
attention to two objects simultaneously, the attention 
being given for the purjoose of judgment as to likeness and 
difference of the objects involved. 

This process belongs to every stage of knowledge, to 
perception where sensations are compared, and judgment 
is pronounced, to generalization, to all the highest pro- 
cesses of reasoning, wherever there is an exercise of judg- 
ment, or wherever consecutive thinking is done. It is the 
essential principle, therefore, in all grades of intellectual 
^ activity. 

Sully, 73, 76, 80, 96, 332, and article in Mind, vol. 10. Dewey, 89- 
90,143. Murray, 105-8. Hamilton, Lect., 34. cf. his five primary 
acts of comparison, cf . also in Murray's Hamilton, 134-5. Lotze, 
40-46. Wundt, 2 : 219 and 305. 

We pass now from G-eneral to Special Psychology, from 
the study of the elements and processes discoverable in all 
thought, to the results of the combinations of these ele- 
ments by these processes, the various jDroducts of mental 
life. 

Sensations we find combined by processes of association, 
memory, comparison, and the product of the combination 
grasped into a whole by the sj)ontaneous, primary, synthe- 
tizing impulse of the mind. 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Perception. 

Definition. 

There is no simpler mental act, apparently, than the im- 
mediate recognition of an object, which we name Percep- 
tion. It differs from the initial process we have already 
noted, in that it is a definite, distinct, objectifying and 
localizing of a thing. It differs from Sensation in that it 
is an act where that is passive, in its definite, objective, 
character where that is vague and subjective, and in its 
implication of volition and attention where that is in- 
voluntary and recipient. 

As it involves a reaction of mind against awakened 
sensations, or an action of mind upon them, it is called 
by many Sense- Perception, but the double term is cum- 
brous and unnecessary. 

The word has been used in philosophical literature in a 
great variety of senses, as applicable to feeling, imagining, 
and all acts of knowing. Locke uses it as equivalent to 
thinking, and it has been very commonly used as synony- 
mous with '^idea," but since the time of Eeid, in Scot- 
land, and Kant, in Germany, the term has been confined 
to the apprehension of external objects. 

But simple as the act is, and apparently a fundamental 
fact in knowledge, yet the mind which so instantaneously 
grasps an object is able also to analyze the product and to 
discover processes and elements unsuspected by ordinary 
experience. I hear a sound outside my window, and say a 
man is trimming a stone with a stone-chisel. Notliing 
could be more instantaneous than my conclusion, though 
I see nothing but the paper before me. But whence this 



62 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

'^ simple " percept ? A sound reaches my ear ; how do 1 
connect with it a man, a hammer, a chisel, a stone, an 
act ? And if I take each element in this question I may 
ask, why do I call this a hammer, or a chisel, or a stone, or 
a man ? Evidently each one of these percepts is a combina- 
tion resting on former knowledge and experiences. I name 
this a chisel because through a multitude of experiences 
this combination of steel, wood, color, hardness, form, has 
become known to me as such. I say the man pounds a 
stone because many experiences have connected certain 
sounds with definite external causes, and I distinguish this 
from the sound of wood, and from the ringing of a bell. 
Indeed, I know this is a sound, and not a taste, only be- 
cause of previous experiences whereby these particular 
sensations have been referred to this category. All that I 
directly perceive, then, is a sound, and all else is a com- 
plex of inferences, each part itself a complex resting on 
diverse sensations experienced in the past. Sight, touch, 
muscular feeling, have all been involved, and as clearly 
this present experience rests on association and compari- 
son of previous mental states and therefore involves 
memory. 

These steps must be indicated now in detail. 

On the definition and analysis cf. Hamilton's Reid, Note D*and 
notes on pp. 876-7 ; Fleming, Vocabulary. Sully, 148, 150, 153. 
Baldwin, 116. Murray, 117-123. Speneer, 2 : 246. Bowne, 263. 
Porter, 119, 120. Dewey, 158. Lindner (transl.), 68. Hill, 24. 
Hoffding, 124-125. 

The Perceptions gained through the several 

SENSES. 

Taste and Smell. 

The difficulties, already pointed out, of distinguishing the 
sensations derived through these senses, their evanescent 
character, the small degree in which they can be repre- 
sented to the mind and so associated and compared, and 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 63 

the preponderence in them of the element of feeling over 
that of cognition, render them of very slight importance 
in the study of intellectual processes and results. It is 
often denied that they suggest, or are capable of suggest- 
ing, the external. '^We are inclined to think,'^ writes 
Martineau, ''that what are called the ignoble senses are 
wholly impercipient, and would never, by a mere succes- 
sion of feelings, waken into consciousness the distinction 
between subject and object, or reveal their own organic 
seat.^' But vague as they are they contain an element 
common to all sensations, called by James '^ voluminous- 
ness,'' and by Ward ^^ extensity," and suggestive, there- 
fore, though in a vague and faint way, of a spatial re- 
lation. 

Baldwin, 86-7. Sully, 121. Janes, 27-29. Murray, 123-135. 
Porter, 138 sq. James, 2 : 134. Ward, Encyc. Brit. (art. Psychology), 
vol. 20, pp. 46 and 53. 

Musculai' Sense. 

The power of this sense is discussed at this point, be- 
cause it is involved in most of the perceptions gained 
through touch, sight, and hearing. Its right to a place 
among the special senses has already been established (p. 
26), and the great scope of its influence in contributing to 
our knowledge has been indicated. The adjustment of 
the focus of the eye, the dexterity gained by the hand, 
and its marvelous quickness in discerning amid various 
degrees of pressure felt, or required to be put forth, and 
the quickness of the ear in catching indications of direc- 
tion, or in discerning diversities of quality in sounds, all 
illustrate the important, if perhaps secondary place of this 
sense in obtaining knowledge. Our sense of resistance is 
fundamental in the process by which we learn that the 
world is external to us, and our experiences of effort have 
closest bearing on our conceptions of causality and free- 
dom. Thus both our conceptions of the self and not-self 



64 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

and by implication, of space, find a basis in the revelations 
of this sense. 

In the former discussion of the sensations derived from 
this sense, it was remarked that the other senses receive 
stimulus from without, and are recipient only. But when 
we put forth energy the muscular sense obeys an im- 
pulse derived from the mind itself, and thus this sense 
is brought into a more intimate relation to the mental life 
than is the case with any other. The feeling of Person- 
ality is suggested in it. 

Thus, whether associated with other senses, or regarded 
by itself, this sense is of most fundamental import in re- 
lation to all problems of our Personality in relation to an 
external world. 

Refs. on p. 28. cf . Murray, 182 sq. Martineau, Essays, 1 : 260-1. 
Baldwin, 91. Stanley Hall, Mind, vol. 3 : 433 and McKenzie, Mind, 
12:433. Dewey, 162 and 173. 

Touch. 

Considered by itself it is not probable that any larger 
knowledge could be gained by this sense alone than that dim 
knowledge of space already referred to as given in the 
'' extensity^^ of any sensation. Any single nerve-ending 
would communicate a movement awakening a tactile sen- 
sation, but would the multiplicity of such sensations, de- 
rived from various parts of the body, result in an idea of 
space 9 G-iven the attending mind, correlating its various 
sensations, and we see how the inference would be possible, 
but here we are concerned with the question. How much 
can this sense, in and of itself, contribute to our knowl- 
edge ? 

Assuming the doctrine of ^Mocal signs'*^ as in some 
sim2Dle form a statement of fact, we shall have one kind of 
sensation from the first finger, another from the second, 
and so on. Now if the hand be kept still, simply re- 
ceiving the impressions so made, the feeling received 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 65 

tlirough the second finger is registered, and that through 
the first likewise, but the tliought of difference is not 
registered through the sense, nor is the thought of any 
other relation. 

So far as the actual knowledge derived through the 
sense is concerned, we have an impression A, and then an 
impression B, but nothing in these suggests that A is re- 
mote from B, or near to it. Data on which the space-idea 
can be constructed are indeed here, but it is not the pro- 
duct of the sense. 

The great importance of this sense, however, becomes 
apparent when it is combined with the muscular sense. 
When the hand is moved over a succession of points there 
is a new sensation common to the diverse sensations re- 
ceived at different points of contact. If the hand is 
pressed on the object there is the resistance and the sense 
of effort, and if it is moved gradually over it the sense of 
movement is one binding as to a common center the various 
sensations associated with it. What has been said of the 
relation of the muscular sense to consciousness must here 
be borne in mind. 

Movement, then, in combination with touch, yields the 
sensations of successive points, while the placing of the 
hands upon a number of these suggests their coexistence. 
Here we have the percept of space, and the constant repe- 
tition of these experiences brings the perception of the 
persistence of the object. 

Evidently, too, the space perceived through this sense is 
of three dimensions. The grasp of anything in the hand 
results in a suggestion of separate but related points, an 
object whose parts are related in depth as well as in length 
and breadth. 

It is contended by some, as Platner, quoted by Hamil- 
ton, that though space is a necessary thought-form, yet 
em2)iric(illy it is known only by vision. The blind, after 



66 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

couching, must learn to live in space. He does not at first 
discriminate between a sphere and a cube. While blind he 
^^has absolutely no perception of an outer world, beyond 
the existence of something effective, different from his 
own feeling of passivity, and in general, only of the nu- 
merical diversity — shall I say, of impressions, or of 
things ?" Hamilton himself inclines to sustain this view. 

But even if the statements could be relied on, — and it is 
as clearly affirmed of cases of blind restored to sight, that 
they at once clearly distinguished the circular from the 
triangular, — yet they would only prove that definite form is 
the product of certain associations of ideas, and that the 
sudden possession of a new sense would compel the co- 
ordination of its deliverances with those of the previous 
experience. Absolute dimensions are not given by sight or 
touch, and the limitations noted by Platner would probably 
be true, mutatis mutandis, of one who had vision only, 
without the power of touch. If the blind boy could not 
imagine how his father could carry his mother's picture in 
his watch, his difficulty was due to a misunderstanding of 
what a picture is. Even with all our powers we find it 
hard not to be deceived by the apparent magnitude of a 
tooth touched by the sensitive tongue. In either case 
previous associations dominate the thought, but in both 
the spatial perception is clear and definite, 

The process of movement and touch described above 
Avould yield, with the notion of space, that of number^ as 
the diverse points are touched and related. 

The same association enables us to perceive roughness 
and smoothness, hardness and softness, heaviness and 
lightness. 

The marvelous degree of acuteness which can be gained 
by this sense is illustrated by the testers of cloth, meals, 
flour, by counters of money and their rapid detection of 
counterfeits, as they count (as in the Treasury Department, 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 67 

at Washington), by the experiences of the blind, and by 
the tricks of the so-called mind-readers. 

Porter. 147 sqq. 182. Sully, 156 sqq. Murray, 135-147. Bald- 
win, 133 sq. Hamilton (Bo wen's ed.), 379 sqq. 

James, 2 : 203 sqq. Life of Laura Bridgman. Stuart Cumber- 
land's revelat^ of an experience of a "thought-reader," Nineteenth 
Century, Dec, 1886. Bain, 356 sq. Dewey, 163. 

Hearing. 

As in the perceptions already considered, so here, we 
recognize the element of '* voliiminousness,^" or ^^ ex- 
tensity,^" the vague datum of the spatial idea. We have 
already seen that the sensations awakened through this 
sense differ in intensity, in pitch, and in quality, but none 
of these could in themselves convey the slightest notion of 
space, were it not for the constitution of the organ itself. 

The possession of two ears furnishes the means of a 
double impression from the same sound, or for a distinct 
apprehension of two simultaneous sounds as varying in 
intensity, according to the number of vibrations reaching 
either ear. Indeed it is likely that the different parts of a 
single ear may be so affected as to give their " local signs,"" 
and so a possible datum for the notion of space. Evidently, 
however, there are at best the vaguest data from these ex- 
periences in themselves. But when the head is turned, 
that is, when the muscular sense is combined with that of 
hearing, there is a quite definite notion of direction 
gained, though it should be remembered, in illustrating 
this, that our perceptions of direction by the ear are often 
really dependent on the quality of the sounds heard, and 
are associated with perception through sight, as well. Yet, 
after every allowance for this, there seems to be a definite 
remainder, — an apprehension of a definite spatial relation, 
if not always a definite localization. 

The idea of distance, which seems to be a direct per- 
ception, is manifestly entirely acquired through the asso- 



68 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

elation of certain intensities and qualities of sounds with 
distances perceived through sight and the muscular senses. 
Generally the louder sound is thought of as from proxi- 
mate things, — that is, the wave lengths are broader from 
nearer objects, — and the faint sound is regarded as from 
afar, but experience daily leads us to correct this result of 
our general associative processes. 

The value of the perceptions of hearing in forming our 
notion of time is more evident, but here, also, we must 
discriminate between what we gain from the sense itself 
and from its association with other senses, or with the ap- 
perceptive function of the mind. 

The ear discriminates among sounds where one hundred 
and thirty-two beats occur in a single second. This is a 
finer power than any other sense possesses. But to dis- 
tinguish these beats is not, as is too often assumed, to dis- 
tinguish the intervals between them. That is, one does 
not distinguish succession in sounds by distinguishing 
successive sounds. That would be twie, and this sense 
supplies only the data for the notion, and not the no- 
tion itself. One hears a sound, and a sound, and a sound, 
but we must look beyond the ear for the apprehen- 
sion of the relations of these sounds in time. In this 
connection Mr. Dewey's words on rhythm are of great 
interest, founded as it is in the nature of the soul, and by 
its own structure " pointing to past and future," so being 
"permanence amid change '^ (18i sq.). But the genesis 
of the time-idea engages us here only as it is related to the 
sense of hearing, and we see that we gain thus only data 
for the notion and not the notion itself. 

The quick and exact discrimination of sounds is no- 
where illustrated more fully than in our use of words, in- 
volving such collocations of sounds in every utterance, or 
than in our appreciation of music, with its vast varieties 
of tones, in melody and harmony. These illustrations 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 69 

point to the high intellectual value of this sense as in- 
volved in the very elements of thought, and as essential 
to all its progress. 

Murray, 147 sq, Baldwin, 93, 131, 188. Porter, 140 sq. Sully, 
205 sq. Dewey, 184 sq. 

Sight, 

If we think of the mind as a mere power of reacting 
against sensations, localizing them in the vague sense in 
which we have used the word " extensity," the sensations 
of vision would give us no more knowledge of the world 
than those of smell or taste, or the simple tactile sense. 
A ray of light, or a dozen rays of light, would be seen 
as rays, separate, unrelated sensations of light. The 
'* local sign '' accompanying each would be but a part of 
the distinct sensation, varieties of intensity in conscious- 
ness. But when we think of the mind as a co-ordinating 
power, as relating the sensations thus received, — an active, 
spontaneous power, rather than a product of associated 
sensations, — we have still the question to answer, whether 
through this single sense it would apprehend the external 
as extended, and in three dimensions. 

Probably, if the movement of the muscles of the eye be 
excluded from the problem, such a relation of the sensa- 
tions awakened as would constitute a spatial idea would be 
impossible, and that whether the vision be monocular or 
binocular. For in that case the analogy to the organ of 
smell would be close, — a receptivity to certain kinds of im- 
pressions, a power to awaken certain sensations, a vague 
extensity, therefore, but no relating of localized sensations 
in a perceived object. That is, the mind co-ordinates its 
sensations by movement, and the muscular sense is a con- 
dition of the apprehension of space. 

Given this, also, and what do we see ? Objects ex- 
tended, colored, surface, i. e., space in the two dimensions 



70 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

of length and breadth. The effort to show that color 
alone is seen, and that this is associated with the idea of 
extension gained through touch, is futile. One cannot 
conceive surface without color, nor color without super- 
ficial extent, and the juxtaposition of colors, in any case, 
would force on the mind the thought of a spatial relation. 

This superficial extension would be as evident to one eye 
as to two, though the larger possibilities of movement, in 
the latter case, would make the apprehension more rapid. 
But the delicate adjustments of the muscles of the eye 
are the more important consideration, by which the object 
is brought into the field of clear vision through the 
adjustment of the focus and the movement of the eyeball. 
Point after point is thus brought into relation to the eye, 
and the image of one lingers on the retina while another 
is introduced, and the points became thus related in a 
whole. The field of vision, but not the essential power, is 
broadened vastly by the possession of two eyes. 

This apprehension of spatial relations in length and 
breadth must be regarded as indefinite, in a sense. The 
spatial relation is distinct, and the surface as long and 
broad is clearly discerned, but there is no accurate meas- 
urement possible by sight alone. This result is attained 
only by a long process of association, comparison, and 
memory. The fixed look of the new-born infant is but a 
stare, without intelligence. The difference between light 
and darkness is apprehended after several hours, but it is 
a week before he converges his eyes toward an object, and 
generally nearly a fortnight before that convergence is 
more than accidental, and the head is turned from one ob- 
ject to another. After three weeks the movements of the 
eyes are associated to follow a moved object, but it takes 
three months before there seems to be a pur^jose to follow 
with the eye the object moving. A like vagueness is seen 
in the case of the blind restored to sight, in the failure to 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 71 

see form distinctly, or to make any estimate of the size of 
objects. 

Look at two objects, one a post near by, the other a 
house in the distance. The comparison of the size of the 
images on the eyes may show the post the larger, but the 
mind interprets the visual signs of the house in terms of 
other experiences, — received through the sense of touch 
and the muscular sense. We have learned to judge of size 
in relation to distance, and, as we shall see, the visual 
apprehension of distance is a simple association with 
muscular experiences. 

And so of form, or shape. The figure awakens the 
vague visual sensations referred to, and the muscular 
movements of the eye adjust it to more and more careful 
observation, but the accurate perception of shape is gained 
by constant association with the sense of touch. This is 
the method in all human experience, but possibly the eye, 
without this sense, might, in time, convey the impressions 
of accurate form to the mind. 

But can we also perceive distance by the eye ? Is a 
third dimension possible to visual perception ? 

Certainly this perception comes very sloAvlyin the child. 
For months it will grasp after things far beyond its reach 
with no apparent apprehension of the fact, and accurate 
notions of distance are scarcely formed at two years of age. 
The vision is perfectly clear, but the differences of distances 
are slowly learned through frequent efforts and failures, 
and through many complex movements of the body, and 
especially the arms. 

Since Berkeley's time the view has been generally 
accepted that the ray of light is a line endwise to the eye, 
whose length therefore is not suggested, any more than 
we can tell the length of a telegraph wire by touching an 
end of it. This view has been combatted by a few 
prominent psychologists (see references). James, for 



72 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

example, holding to his general doctrine of the volimiin- 
ousness of a sensation, thinks this involves a third dimen- 
sion, that visual experience alone, and even if the eyeballs 
were fixed, would give us distance. 

The same object would alternately cover different parts 
of the retina, and would thus '' determine the mutual 
equivalences of the first two dimensions of the field of 
view : and by exciting the physiological causes of his 
perception of depth in various degrees, it would establish 
a scale of equivalences between the first two and the third 
(2 : 214). But his striking illustrations (215) do not 
seem to suggest, necessarily, any visual product but 
different shadings of the plane of vision. 

Doubtless the inherited tendency to associate these 
sensations with those of touch must lead to a rapid 
development of the visual appreciation of depth, — under 
the influence of experience, — but so far as we can learn 
from the infant, and from those restored to sight, Berke- 
ley's view states the facts. 

We must very carefully sift the illustrations brought 
from this latter source, and one cannot too carefully 
remember that the man restored to sight is under the 
bondage of thoughts and impressions gained through 
another sense, and is aiming to adjust new sensations to 
old experiences, — but after every allowance it would seem 
to be well-established by the type cases that the blind 
restored see but colored surface, and that vaguely, — that 
they have no conception of perspective, and that only 
gradually, and by means of movement, do they gain an 
apprehension of depth, or distance. 

In the muscular sense, through the movements of the 
head, and in the fine adjustments of the eye, associated 
with various distances, and in the difference of the retinal 
images on the two eyes, we have the visual data which the 
mind associates with other muscular experiences, in 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 73 

determining distance, — or solidity. Hence the observer is 
easily deceived by the imitation, in painting, of the effects 
of solidity. The stereoscope, also, illustrates this, giving 
us every appearance of solidity with a flat ground, — 
because the pictures are taken from the different points 
required by the different retinal images as we look at the 
object itself. 

The fact that the young of animals sometimes seem to 
be born with this power which is only gradually gained in 
man, cannot be used to set aside the positive evidence here 
indicated as to its absence in the human race. 

Refs. Baldwin, 127 sq. Porter, 154 sq. and 161 sq. Bascom, 105 
sq. Bowen's Hamilton, 371 sq. Dewey, 164 sq. Sully, 172 sq. 
James, 2 : 211 sq. Murray, 158 sq. Preyer, Seele des Klndes, pp. 
29-40. Sully, in Mind, vol. Ill (1878), on theories adverse to 
Berkeley's. Berkeley : Theory of Vision. James also writes in 
Mind, Oct. and July, '87. Hoffding, 193-200. Bain, 370 sq. 

Perception : Constructive, 

Analysis has thus far served to show that each sense if 
assumed to be related to a merely passive mind, would be 
productive of unrelated sensations, differing only in in- 
tensities. If the mind be assumed to possess a reactionary 
objectifying power, it is even yet impossible to think of 
aught as given save the unrelated single percepts, or re- 
actions against the individual sensations. No knowledge 
of things could thus be possible. 

When we assume a co-ordinating activity, with its ex- 
pression through the muscular sense, we find that definite 
pr.oducts are yielded by the several senses. Taste and smell, 
indeed, are productive of little save a vague sense of ex- 
tensity, but touch is found, in experience, to suggest space, 
in three dimensions, number, weight, roughness, hardness 
and their counterparts. Hearing suggests extensity, though 
not definite localization, and succession, a datum for the 
notion of time. 



74 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Sight suggests space, in two dimensions, colored sur- 
face. 

But now we have to ask how all these perceptions, 
analyzable into sensations co-ordinated by the mind, have 
resulted in wlioles. We perceive things, objects, over 
against ourselves, that is, spatially related to us. How ? 
If the traditional view of the imm.ediate perception of a 
complex object is shown to be false, through analysis, how 
can we explain the fact that these diverse perceptions are 
united in one whole ? We have treated perception analyti- 
cally : we must now consider it constructively. 

By no process of reason have we been able to picture to 
ourselves an unintelligent impression on the retina, or finger- 
tip, combining with another, to form a sensation. We have 
been obliged, by every law of clear thinking, apart from 
any opinion of the ultimate sources, or differences, of mind 
and matter, to assume mind at the moment we think of 
sensation as diverse from impression. And again, the in- 
conceivability of a process of union of sensations among 
themselves, and the observation of the processes of thought, 
compel us to reject the notion that mind is built up 
passively by a process of associations of sensations, and to 
assume at the beginning an active mind. 

We have already seen, in our survey of the processes of 
mental life, that the mind instinctively, in the first man- 
ifestation of itself, objectifies, and as instantly, in a vague 
ways, relates, the various sensations awakened. 

We have in these facts the material for a constructive 
view. 

The former process, objectification, might deal with 
single sensations, and with each several sense, as indeed 
has been fully illustrated. But we never have isolated 
sensations, and we have no reason to suppose that the 
infant does. We are in the midst of a world which urges 
its messages on all our senses simultaneously, and in- 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 75 

cessantly, from birth till death. The problem is, there- 
fore, to explain how these various simultaneous im- 
pressions, awakening synchronous sensations, result in our 
perception of an object. The answer must be found in 
this native co-ordinating power of the mind. Instinctive- 
ly, necessarily, it relates all that is relatable, it unifies the 
diverse. All seeking for knowledge, in the busy infant, 
or in the adult, is an expression of this activity whose 
simpler form is experienced in perception. 

The mind is not divided into senses, but is active 
through them all, interpreting, giving significance to the 
sensations, welding them into one by its own act, yet so 
that we do not have smell plus taste, plus touch, &c., but 
an object. 

Perception is thus seen to be but a developed form of 
what we found to be the mind^s primary activity. 

Logically we analyze the product, but in reality we 
have here the primary fact in knowledge, an immediate, 
direct act of mind. 

The failure to admit this often grows out of a confusion 
of it with the later stage of acquired perception. From 
knowing an object we go on to classify it with other 
objects, to particularize and individualize it, and by these 
processes to call it this and that. These depend upon 
long experiences of association and com|)arison, but this 
simple perception of an object does not. The object is 
known as such before it is known as a peach, or an apple. 
It can only be of this acquired percept that Herbert 
Spencer^s words can in any sense be held true, that 
perception ^'^ is a diagnosis." 

A confirmation of this view is seen in what has been 
already said of the muscular sense, which we have found 
so necessary a helper to touch and sight in giving us the 
idea of space. Its action, unlike other senses, (we speak 
now of its locomotive phase) is due to the mind itself, is, 



76 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

in fact, an expression of its effort to co-ordinate its 
sensations. 

Baldwin, 138 sq. Porter, 126-133, 184. Sully, Illusions, c. III. 
Ladd, 388 and 467. James, 2 : 103, cf. 111-113. Hoffding, 124. 
Dewey, 161. Bowue, 253 sq. Bascom, 85-91. Sully, 149, 152, 212. 
Martineau, Essays, 1 : 260. Laurie, Metaphysica Nova et Vetusta, 
33-34. Hill, 41, 42. 

We find thus involved in the act of Perception, 

(1) Attention, the active mind; (2) a vague localiza- 
tion, or isolation ; (3) a definite localization ; (4) Com- 
parison and Association of sensations, involving Memory ; 
(5) Eecognition of a class ; (6) Recognition of a particu- 
lar object, as such (Acquired Perception) ; (7) a distinc- 
tion of subject and object. 

Of these, (1) involves a discussion of consciousness, (3) an 
inquiry into the idea of space, (4) the suggestion of the 
notion of time, (7) the notion of substance as over against a 
conscious self. The survey of things, as we really see them, 
m reciprocal relations, also suggests the causal relation. 
Thus Perception involves the further discussion of the 
categories of Self, Space, Time, Substance, Causality. 

For the general student, however, it is preferable to 
merely indicate, at this point, what are the large implica- 
tions of this simple fact in mental life, leaving their full 
discussion till after we have followed the development of 
the further products of the processes and elements already 
considered. We shall find ourselves still following the 
processes already described into ever widening spheres of 
activity. 

Generalization. 

The processes of the mental life, which have been al- 
ready followed through the act of Perception, may now be 
traced into wider realms of activity. They will be found, 
however, to be essentially the same, though intensified by 
the larger activity of the mind. A marked difference, 
however, is seen at this point in the objects of that activity. 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. ' 77 

In Perception we discover an analysis and synthesis of 
sensations, but we deal, in the completed process, with 
concrete, individual, objects. In Generalization, on the 
contrary, we deal with objects only that we may form, on 
the basis of their common qualities, higher realities of 
thought. That is, we deal with the finished products of 
Perception that we may form yet more significant products: 
we pass from individuals to relations of individuals, seek- 
ing for a more inclusive unity. 

It need hardly be said that in following these broader ac- 
tivities of thought we deal with them as psychological 
facts, and do not, with the logician, assume them without 
regard to origin or order of development. But the ac- 
cepted order of treatment follows the outlines of the di- 
visions laid down by the formal science. 

A small child perceives a dog day by day. If, now, a 
number of dogs enter, the child may look about without 
any sign, at first, of noting his own dog, apparently seeing 
a number of indistinguishable dogs. After a time, how- 
ever, he discovers his own. By what process ? Has he 
carefully compared the marks of these dogs among them- 
selves, and then differentiated from these the marks of 
his own ? That is not likely. Kather, in all probability, 
he has suddenly espied a particular mark, in this general 
mass, that awakens a particular memory and association. 
The primary act of abstraction, implied even in the pro- 
cess of Perception, as we have seen, is witnessed here in a 
more developed field. But probably the child^s act is much 
more the recognition of a particular directly, as in the 
perceptive process, than one of conscious comparison and 
abstraction. 

And yet these processes are here. The child has with- 
drawn from the common object, dog, certain signs of a 
particular dog. In doing so he has, unconsciously, recog- 
nized a general notion, — dog. If a Shetland pony were 



78 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

presented he would call it a Mg dog, again revealing the 
conception of a class, and the apprehension of certain in- 
dividual differences. 

The primary generalization thus probably begins in the 
indefinite general, the association of like objects, and the 
further j^rocess consists in abstracting from it certain defi- 
nite particulars marking the individual. As intelligence 
increases, and mental power is more developed, the mind 
reaches out actively to construct new unities, — seehing for 
common qualities in the manifold objects of sense, and 
combining them, in thought, into new wholes. The defi- 
nite individual, or the definite general concept, about 
which battles were waged, in the old controversy of the 
Primum Cognitum, are unknown to early psychical history. 
Knowledge begins with the indefinite, with a leaning to 
the indefinite individual, but the indefiniteness has in it a 
general suggestion, and here, as elsewhere, the truth in 
the old controversy is probably to be found in ioth ex- 
tremes. 

We have thus involved in the formation of a general 
notion, — Abstraction, Classification, or Generalization 
Proper, and Naming, or Denomination. The first is the 
old process of differentiation, already discovered, only here 
qualities, not sensations, are its objects. The second is 
the process of co-ordination, or combination, — mental 
synthesis. This gives us the Concept. The third cor- 
responds to localization in Perception, the name fixing the 
concept definitely. 

Al>stractio7i. 

In its earlier phases abstraction is perhaps what we so 
often find it in mature life, a negative fact. The atten- 
tion of the child has been drawn to the particular signs of 
his own dog, and has thus been abstracted from all else. 
But abstraction in active mental life is a voluntary exclu- 
sion from the mind of all irrelevant materials that it may 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 79 

give all its power to the solution of the matter before it. 
It involves comparison, therefore is active where the for- 
mer state is passive, and becomes the condition of all 
fruitful mental effort. It is the expression of the mind^'s 
seeking for unity amid diversity, but the negative side of 
that expression, because through the very limitations of 
mind it is obliged to Ireah up, or analyze, wholes, in its 
search for larger unities. Abstraction is therefore an- 
alysis, and in itself gives no general notion, but only the 
materials out of which the general notion is formed by 
synthesis. 

Refs. on Abstraction. Baldwin, 273-5. Sully, 341, 353. Murray, 
185-189. Porter, 389. Hill, 136. Dewey, 206. James, 1 : 472. 
Hoffding, 165-170. 

Hamilton's Lectures, 477. 

Generalization Proper : Classification. 

In Perception the mind dwells on an object, but in 
Generalization the synthesis is of common elements in 
several objects. The attention, as has been seen, may be 
given to a particular quality in a single object, but that is 
a percept : if it be given to that very quality as represent- 
ed in several objects, it is a concept,— as, for example, we 
may fix the attention on the greenness of a single tree, or 
upon greenness as common to trees. 

Comparing objects among themselves we classify those 
of common attributes together, and form thus a new 
notion, or concept, of the class. To trees nature adds 
shrubs, vines, &c., and we find among them a unifying 
principle and this common element stands out before the 
mind as distinct from the objects so gathered. It is the 
concept of a class. The mind identifies the like and like, 
and holds together these same elements in its different 
experiences. Its apperceptive function again is manifested 
beyond the limits of the merely concrete. So the broaden- 
ing of experience ever increases our generalizations, and 



80 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

gives greater extension, and depth, to those already formed. 

There could be no considerable growth in knowledge 
but for this power of the mind. The only possible process 
would be the addition of particulars to particulars. The 
lower savage tribes illustrate this. Lubbock tells us that 
the Australians only count to four, and that the next 
word stands for '' many/^ equivalent to our ^' hundred " 
or '' thousand." Yet some have methods of counting by 
concrete expressions, —hands, feet, for example, equal ten. 
It is the growth in the power of Generalization which 
marks the separation between this and the achievements of 
a Newton. 

Porter, 389. Murray, 189-195. Baldwin, 275. Sully, 330 sq. 
James, vol. 1, c. xii (esp. 461-2 and 472-7). Hill, 136. Dewey, 207- 
210. Murray's Hamilton, 140-2. Hamilton's Lectures, 488 (the Lect. 
at length), and Lect. 34, pp. 471 sq. Lubbock, Prehist. Times, 437 
sq. Tyler, Prim. Culture, c. 7. Jevons, Principles of Science, 1 : 29. 
McCosh, Logic, 18. Thomson, Outlines Laws of Thought, 94, 128. 
Bain, Logic 383. Fowler, Deductive Logic, p. 16, note 4. Lotze, 
Logic, 19, cf. 16. Murray's Hamilton, 145. Hamilton's Logic, 86. 
Mill's Exam, of Ham., 2: 63-5. 

Naming, or Denomination. 

Given now this general notion, or concept, how shall it 
be retained ? How can the mind retain what it has thus 
built up by its power of abstraction and generalization ? 
The child^s view of the dogs has led him gradually to 
select special marks among them which he has identified 
as his own dog. As the process thus started grows, he 
comes to think a class '^ dog," a general representative of 
all dogs. But he can neither communicate his idea, nor 
preserve it with distinctness, unless he has for it a general 
symbol. Thought, that is, is possible without language, 
but not to any considerable extent of generalization. To 
repeat the often long processes necessary in the formation 
of a concept would render advance impossible. 

But the same synthetic power of mind which is able to 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 81 

form a general notion is able also to find an expression for 
it;, and an expression which shall mark at once its general 
reference and which shall also satisfy the mind^s demand 
for the particular. 

That is^ as has been indicated, Naming corresponds to 
Localization in Perception ; it gives embodiment to the 
vague and general, it projects into existence that which 
else would be vaguely subjective, and would be lost. 

The animal forms no general notious, apparently, and 
certainly has no words for them. In this fact is embodied 
the statement of the supreme limitation of the animal 
kingdom in distinction from man. 

The general qualities in the concept are retained in the 
symbol, but by thi^ particular expression the mind is 
assisted in passing rapidly over its previous steps, and 
even ignoring them altogether. In mathematics, for 
example, the higher branches use the symbols which cover 
processes in the lower. Numbers, themselves symbols, 
give way to letters representing whole series of numbers, 
and long processes are reduced to a short formula. That 
is but an illustration of the use of the name of the concept 
in broadening the sphere of thought in all classification, 
and in all thinking. It makes thought easy, and forms a 
basis for its further advance. 

This statement suggests also the dangers which lurk in 
the use of general terms, the inexact generalization which 
dwells on the more vague and general elements suggested 
in the symbol, and the too rapid generalization which 
grows out of our application of our type or symbol to 
things not included in them. 

The relation of the name to the general notion has been 
productive of much controversy since Plato's time. Then 
it was a question as to the existence of an external reality 
of which the general notion was a sign, and the answers 
divided the philosophers into Realists and Nominalists. 



82 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

The Platonic schools held that a universal existed, and 
that the general name gtood for it : the Nominalist con- 
tended that the name stood for an individual thing, and 
that the general had no objective existence. This dis- 
cussion was a most active one in the mediaeval schools, 
with its watchwords *' Universalia ante rem," and 
'* Universalia post rem.'^ 

The controversy has assumed another phase now, and 
debates the possibility of forming an idea corresponding to 
the general term, the Nominalist holding that the term 
has always an individual reference, but suggests vaguely a 
large number of individuals through certain general features 
suggested, the Conceptualist {" Universalia in re ") 
declaring that the word stands for the common elements 
of a class, and represents an idea distinct from any and all 
individuals. 

Those who attempt to build up mind through an asso- 
ciation of sensations are naturally nominalistic, — but if the 
mind is endowed with a synthetic power, not itself a pro- 
duct of exj^erience, the geJieral reference of the term is 
likely to be insisted upon. General notions do not, indeed, 
have external existence, but they are the expression of the 
fact that the common properties they express do have being 
in nature, and that the mi7id can separate and unite what 
cannot be separated or united in the actual objects con- 
templated. 

Refs. Baldwin, 277-9. Hoffding, 170-3. James, 2 : 356. Porter, 
419 sq. Sully. 343-7. Murray, 196-202, Dewey, 211-213. So- 
cratic and Platonic Concepts. Schwegler, 50 and 71. Lamson's Laura 
Bridgman, 16 sq. On too wide generalization, cf. Bacon's " Negative 
Instances " in Novum Organum. 

On Nominalism, Realism, &c., beside the general histories of 
Philosophy, Porter's Review of Theories, c. Ill, pp 403, sq. Sully, 
347-8. Baldwin's Summary, 280. Hamilton's Lectures, xxxv, p. 
Mills' Exam, of Hamilton, c. xvii. Bain's Summary, app. to Mental 
Science. McCosh. Logic, 92. Thomson, Outline Laws of Thought, 
117-123. James, 1 : 470 sq. Locke, Bk. 4, c. 7. § 9. Hill. 141-6. 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 83 

JUDGMEN'T. 

We discover no new processes not already implied in 
previous mental experiences^ as we pass now into more 
developed activities of thought. In each new phase, 
however, implicit processes became explicit, and the un- 
conscious is made conscious. In the formation of a 
concept, for example, we have unconsciously passed from 
one like element to another, and have identified like and 
like, but the process has been rapid, associative, instinc- 
tive. 

In Judgment that comparison and identification are 
explicit : there is a distinct mental assertion of likeness, 
and the embodiment of the judgment in language, i. e., a 
Proposition. This is parallel to the naming of a Concept. 

It will be seen thus that the essential activity is here 
one of relation. I have a general notion horse : I 
extend or define that notion till it includes the thought of 
blackness : I say ^' my horse is black/^ I have related 
the contents of two concepts ; Judgment is a relation of 
concepts, or general terms. 

The Concept has already been defined as the result of 
abstraction, generalization, naming. The named concept 
is the '^ term " of the logicians. It stands for an idea 
which in turn represents a thing. It is '' extended " 
when it is viewed in its class relation, — and when it is 
regarded in relation to its own attributes there is said to 
be '^ intension,^^ or, as Dewey phrases it, '^^ extension is 
the width of its symbolism, the number of objects to 
which it refers : intension is the depth of its significance, 
the number of qualities to which it refers. '' (209) 

The nature of judgment is the same, wliether it deal 
with the concept in one relation or the other. 

Judgments are analytic and synthetic. That is, a judg- 
ment may affirm of a concept something already contained 
in its meaning, as '^ Man is mortal/' or ^' Gold is a metal," 



84 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

or it may extend the meaning of the concept, as '^ Man is 
the only talking animal," " G-old is malleable." It is 
often lost sight of, however, that synthetic judgments ever 
tend to become analytic, with the progress of knowledge. 
When I declare aluminum to be a very light metal I con- 
vey a new notion to those who have known no metal of 
such quality, but to my own mind the judgment is analytic. 
This is illustrated in all the growth of knowledge, and 
shows that the analytic judgment has its interest for the 
psychologist though regarded as fictitious by the logician. 

The classification of judgments belongs rather to Logic 
than Psychology (The subject is treated fully by Baldwin 
and Hill, in references below). 

Hamilton remarks on the fact that judgment is a sug- 
gestion of the limitation of the human mind. We cannot 
at a glance take in the facts before us, but must proceed 
from one to another, making new judgments as any con- 
cept is brought into relation to the new. 

The affirmation in a judgment carries in itself belief : 
the affirmation expresses that. 

Porter, 430-9. Sully, 391 sq. Dewey, 213 sq. Hoffding, 175, 

Murray, 207-11. Baldwin, 283 sq. Hill, 152 sq. Bascom, 166 sq. 
Murray's Hamilton, 150. 

BeUef and Judgment, Sully, 398. Porter, 430-40. Dewey, 215, 
218. 

Reasoning. 

We found the judgment a necessity because of our need 
to define the indefinite. The concept had general reference, 
and the definite judgment satisfied the mind's need for 
unity, in identifying the like elements in the related con- 
cepts. But the process of intelligence cannot stop here, 
Judgments are continually bringing us into relation to the 
unknown : we make judgments which do not seem at 
once to clearly relate themselves to our general knowledge, 
and the process of bringing this unknown into relations 
with the known is reasoning. 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 85 

We are familiar with the process, which we have followed 
from the beginning of our study of the mind^s activities. 

In perception there is an implicit comparison and identi- 
fication of like elements. In conception we note the same 
process. But in the former we dealt with sensations, 
in the latter with perceptions. In judgment the same 
process was applied to concepts. Xow, again, we apply 
the same to judgment. But in the previous cases the pro- 
cess has been implicit and unconscious, and here it becomes 
explicit, conscious. But the relating activity is one, 
here dealing with judgments, themselves relations, and in- 
volving a relation and comparison, of relations. 

There is much so-called reasoning that cannot be said 
to involve this conscious process. The reasonings of child- 
hood, and much also of adult life, are frequently mere 
inferences, or leaps, from one fact to another. The laws 
of suggestion alone explain the process. The child falls 
down stairs, and when he creeps to the head of the stair- 
way the next day he draws back because the suggestion of 
the fall comes with the sight of the stairs. This is analo- 
gous to the analytic judgment, in that the predicate is in- 
cluded in the notion of the subject. The element of 
similarity is here, but the conscious reasoning to it is 
wanting. This is not, therefore, if language be used 
strictly, a reasoning process. 

In reasoning we proceed from the unknown object to 
the known by comparing it with a known object to 
which it has a relation. The distinguishing feature is in 
this passage from the unknown, i. e., in our ability to 
correlate the new and strange with that we already know, 
to identify it with that it resembles. We do this de- 
liberately, reflectively : that is the essence of reasoning. 
We must do it because the mind is not at rest when it has 
before it an unrelated fact. 

The syllogistic forms of reasoning are matters for the 



86 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Science of Logic. As a matter of experience men reason 
without regard to those deduced laws. They begin in- 
differently with premise or conclusion and reason from 
minor to major, or vice versa. 

Psychology observes these actual processes, and finds in 
all of them this comparison of judgments, this assimilation 
of like elements, this affirmation of a new relation of the 
elements of the preceding judgments. 

Reasoning is both Deductive and Inductive, — that is, 
we draw conclusions regarding an individual because we 
know a truth of the class to which he belongs, — or we 
assert certain facts of a class of objects because we find 
them true, of a number of individuals. 

Deductive reasoning would be unnecessary if we always 
saw every relation of our thought or fact, but we are 
compelled to use it just as we are to make judgments 
regarding the relations of concepts. If everything which 
is true of the class were at once present to the mind there 
would be no room for this, as a ratiocinative process. 
There would be an implicit, suggestive, process, instead 
of the deduction from the general truth which actually 
takes place. " All men are sinners " may be held in a 
very general sense without any deductive application to 
oneself, — i. e., without the identification of the individual 
with the class. 

Inductive reasoning illustrates, on a broader field, the 
natural tendency to generalize, already noted. The mind 
seeks the similar amid the diverse and aims to unite 
similars in a broader truth, but it also makes universal a 
judgment thus formed from a definite number of 
particulars. 

Thus, too, it is often led, as it follows the extent of a 
judgment, to new and unexpected relations. Similarities 
undiscovered before are revealed, and a new law of nature 
is enunciated. The discoveries of Galileo, Newton, Dar- 
win, illustrate this. 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY, 87 

These two processes are most closely related, and inter- 
mingle continually in our actual reasonings. In every 
Induction some general truth is assumed as its basis : that 
is, it is in so far deductive. Every Induction becomes in 
turn the source of Deduction. 

Dr. Porter has summed up " the conceptions and rela- 
tions which are a priori to the ordinary processes of in- 
ductive inquiry " under (1) Kelation of substance and at- 
tribute, (2) Eelations of causation, (3) Reality and rela- 
tions of time and space, (4) Some properties and laws 
which are known indicate others, (5) Nature adapts ob- 
jects and powers to certain ends, (6) A rational method in 
the Universe 

Refs. Hamilton, Lects, 34-37. Porter, 439 sq (Chaps, on Deduc- 
tion and Induction). Sully, 411-447, Murray, 211 sq. Spencer, 
3 : cc. 2-8. Dewey, 220-233. Hill, 161 sq. James, vol. 2, c. 22. 
Baldwin, 299-311. 

Mill, Logic, 117-126. 

CoxsTRUCTiYE iMAGii^ATiOi^ '.Idealization. 

In considering Association and Memory we have learned 
that the Mind has power to reproduce its own states and 
to recognize them as such. All that is generally treated 
under the head of Passive Imagination, and Phantasy, or 
Fancy, is involved under one or both of these processes, 
and calls for no detailed treatment here. Where it is fully 
treated, as in Baldwin^s Handbook or Sully^'s Outlines, 
there is the full recognition of its implication in the former 
subject. This is shown in what the former calls ^' pre- 
suppositions and modes, ^^ and in the discussion of the laws 
governing it, which are simply those of association and 
memory. (214, 217, 218, 220.) Even Hamilton identifies 
it entirely with the Representative Process *^plus Com- 
parison," though he tends to overrefinement of anaylsis. 
It may be added that the associational philosophy, as 
represented by Bain and Maudsley, naturally places its 



88 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

attention on the combination of old processes, to tlie 
neglect of this creative element. 

Phantasy is thus but the product of this merely associa- 
tive process, '' representation without recognition," as 
Porter says. The Constructive Imagination represents 
the active power of the mind in the recombination of its 
former states and in the creation of new ones on the basis 
of these. 

Are we to trace a distinction, at this point, and as 
related to passive Imagination, between the '' association 
of ideas" and the '^ association of images " ? 

The ideal element may be more prominent in the one 
case, and the image in the other,— but the process is the 
same, with the preponderance of the general, or con- 
ceptual, element in the one, and that of the particular, or 
perceptive, element in the other. 

Imagination, in its creative aspect, to which the word is 
here confined, is but another revelation of the mind's 
tendency to separate that it may recombine and thus 
reach larger unities and more universal relations. In 
every stage of its activity we have discovered this, but have 
now reached its fullest manifestation. 

Evidently it must deal with material already before it. 
What it makes new must be constituted by recombinations 
of the old, plus what the thinking mind may add to these. 
It cannot escape the bondage of space and time, nor the 
general categories of thought, nor the established relations 
and powers of the ideal, or spiritual, world, — but it can 
relate all things anew, under these conditions, and can 
recombine and rearrange them all. The inventor, the 
scientist, the artist, thus produce the new. 

But there is a yet more important element in this creative 
power than a voluntary combination of parts in new re- 
lations. It is the idealizing power of mind. The ten- 
dency to pass from the particular to the general, ever 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 89 

broadening and universalizing former knowledge, is here 
supplemented by the effort to unify the largest generaliz- 
ations in a new particular. It is not, again, a new power : 
something of its activity is witnessed in the formation of a 
particular concept out of the assemblage of common 
qualities of a class. Its fullest activity is however only 
seen in the final effort of Mind to gather all its experiences 
and generalizations into a vital unity. 

This is a reach beyond the actual ; it is nothing less than 
a creation of the mind, a reaching out on the lines of its 
highest thought toward something never realized in its ex- 
perience. The experimental philosophy, therefore, has no 
explanation of this power, although it is plainly seen in the 
intellectual, emotional, and volitional life. 

In the first, the Intellectual, sphere, we seek for a unity 
which shall vitally harmonize all our knowledges, — in 
which fact shall answer to fact, and thought to thought, 
in real and permanent relationship. That is Truth. 

In the second, the Emotional, unalloyed pleasure is the 
aim, — pleasure free from every imperfection, — and we 
name that whose contemplation is fitted to yield this, — 
The Beautiful. 

In the third, the Volitional, the purpose of life is before 
us, regarded in its broadest and most individual relations, 
and we call that which is fitted to accomplish the highest 
end of both — The Grood. 

Does the mind still try to unify this threefold ideal ? 
Each of the ideals referred to implies a harmonizing of the 
ideal aim of individual activity with universal intelli- 
gence, — cognitive, emotional, volitional, — and it is but a 
continuance of the process through which they are ob- 
tained, to seek a higher harmony in which they also find 
unity. Thus results the eager search of all intelligence 
for a Unity behind all diversities of thought, feeling, and 
aspiration, and the dissatisfaction of all thought which 



90 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

does not culminate in Universal Intelligence. This is the 
religious ideal. 

The use of the processes already familiar to us may be 
traced in all these directions of effort to realize an ideal. 

(a.) Coff7iitive, or Speculative. Here we proceed, in our 
search for the common elements in the objects about us, 
by abstraction, identifying like and like, generalizing on 
this basis, and proceeding in like manner as we reach 
higher unities. We form a single science, for example, 
and another, and then we seek a higher truth common to 
the two. We assume everywhere the possibility of relating 
the facts of the universe, and we seek, as ultimate Truth, 
a harmonizing of them all. So philosophy is ever aiming 
to produce systems of knowledge in which the truths of all 
spheres of thought and action shall be shown to be reflec- 
tions, or parts, of an all-comprehensive Truth. 

(b.) Esthetic. 

Here, likewise, by a process of comparison, the various 
elements of objects and their attributes which harmonize, 
or answer each to each, in such wise as to produce pleasure, 
are selected, united, related. The search is for such 
a unity in variety as will minister to the aesthetic sense. 
So far as the definition of the object is concerned the pro- 
cess is cognitional, and is here in place : the experience 
itself is chiefly emotional, and should be discussed under 
the Feelings. But the artist — poet, painter, architect, mu- 
sician, — aims in the materials of his art to find that har- 
mony of objective and subjective elements which will con- 
tribute most to the pleasure of the beholder, — and in so 
far as he is worthy he aims, as an artist, to seize the mo- 
ment of universal interest. Beauty may indeed be made 
to minister to Truth or Goodness, — but in so far as it aims 
to teach or preach or to minister to aught but the pleasure 
in the beautiful, it steps outside the limits of pure assthetic 
ideals. That it often does so, and with good effect, only 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 91 

illustrates the close union of the Emotional and Cog- 
nitive and Volitional elements of our nature. That is, 
the Mind is one, not three, and only by strict analysis can 
we hold ourselves to any one of the three phases of its 
life. Bat fixing attention on this one phase we find that 
by a continuous analysis and synthesis, — comparing, identi- 
fying, it seeks the supremely Beautifal, — that which per- 
fectly satisfies, and which has universal meaning. 

(c.) Ethical. Here also the purpose of a life is viewed 
in relation to itself and to all other lives. Regarding itself 
there must be a possibility of uniting the act to other acts 
of life to make it satisfactory to the reflective conscious- 
ness. That is, chaotic action, unrelated purposes and 
deeds, are impossible to the thinking man. He views his 
life as a whole : he aims to have a relation of harmony in 
all its variety. 

But he also views it in relation to others. He is not 
alone, and is obliged to learn that other lives signify much 
to his, as his does to others. The principles he finds true 
for himself he must find universally true, — or his growing 
intelligence must reject them. By comparison, by ab- 
straction and generalization, he builds up an ideal, — a 
general rule, — a summum lonum, — and that, to him, is the 
Good. 

{d,) Religious. The supreme generalization evidently 
builds, by the same mental processes, on a comparison of 
these ideals, and on a generalizing from them. The 
Supreme Truth is found to include the Supreme Beauty, 
and the Supreme Beauty is seen to be impossible apart 
from Truth, — while both find their completion in the 
activity of the Supreme Good. 

Refs. on Idealization, — Creative Imagination. 

Porter, 351-3T6. Murray, 220-240. Baldwin, 22G-243. A.lso his 
Feeling and Will, 199-243. Hoffding, 178. Hill, 114-133. Sully, 
c .VIII. Dewey, c. VII. Fleming, Vocab. — "Imag. and Fancy." 



92 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

James, 3 : 633-640, 661. (cf. also Dewey's cc. on the Feelings, In- 
tellectual, Esthetic, Ethical : Ditto in Murray.) cf. Bascom, 148-159. 
Bain, 585-6. Maudsley, 185. 

Bacon, Essay on Truth. Schiller, Brief e uber die -^sthetische 
Erziehung des Menschen. 

The Metaphysical and Scientific Theories of the Beautiful and a 
Hist, of Opinion, Sully, Encyc. Brit., art. Esthetics. He also reviews 
Grant Allen's Physiol. Esthetics, Mind, vol. 2. 

Ab?iormal Illustratioois of Mental Activities. 

The activities of mental life have an abnormal as well as 
normal exercise, and the laws which have been discussed 
in connection with the latter find confirmation and fresh 
illustration as we note the former. They are not taken 
up here with a view to full discussion, but only to illustrate 
what has been already established, and to suggest that, 
since we have exhausted the range of known laws now, a 
scientific spirit should induce as to search for the 
explanation of these wonders in the lines already establish- 
ed rather than in assumed new principles which have no 
basis in what we know of mind or body. 

With certain illusions we have become familiar in our 
study of perception. We fancy the surface shown us 
through the stereoscope to be a solid, and the pellet held 
between the two crossed fingers to be double. The senses 
report certain facts to us, and hastily Ave interpret them 
according to usual conditions, and are so befooled, or 
illuded. These are types of all illusion : the senses are 
awakened by an external stimulus, and we mistake their 
deliverances. Our error is in interpretation of facts. 

In halluci?iation, on the contrary, the senses are awaken- 
ed intraorganically, not by external stimulus, and the 
mind projects their mistake into the realm of reality. 

These, in their development in dreams and hypnotic 
conditions, especially interest us here. 

Dreams. 

The dream may be looked upon as the type of these va- 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 93 

rious states, — as itself existing in a condition between 
soundest sleep and a waking state, and as embodying, in 
its various forms, most, if not all, of the conditions illus- 
trated in Somnambulism and Hypnotism. 

The dream is characterized by a fantastic combination 
of former experiences, and by a belief in the reality of 
these. It differs from ordinary experience in that the 
combinations of the mind are freed from ordinary con- 
straints of space and time, and from the corrective in_ 
fluences of the realities encompassing us. Hence nothing 
is too strange for belief, and hence, too, our experiences 
attain a vividness unusual in them when awake. We are 
given over to associative states, the will inactive, rational 
and moral perception dulled, the representative powers 
alone vigorous and active. 

The condition may be such that these reprpductive ac- 
tivities will follow the rational order of our common 
thought, and poems have thus been dreamed out, and 
mathematical puzzles solved, but in general the dream is 
wild, vague, apparently lawless. Something closely akin, 
however, may be seen in the day-dreams of many in a 
wakeful state. 

This suggests, however, another phase of our dream- 
consciousness. Consciousness is not lost : we are partially 
awake. We may maintain a low grade of conscious life — 
as when we watch without wakefulness, for the hour we 
have set for our rising, or as we evidently do when beside 
the intense interest of a dream we find ourselves wondering 
as to its reality, — living the double life of the associative 
and ratiocinative spheres, as we also do, ofttimes, in our full 
consciousness. So Cuvier saved himself from fright when 
the devil seemed to him about to devour him, and so one, 
a child, accustomed to dream of a horse about to devour 
him, determined to plunge into his open mouth, knowing 



94 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

that the effort would arouse him from his terror. The 
confusion of the two spheres referred to, as well as their 
action, is clearly seen in such illustrations. 

Let us note now, in detail, the various mental conditions 
found in the ordinary dream state. 

(a.) The full, unchecked, operation of the representa- 
tive powers. 

(b.) The instinctive tendency of the mind to believe its 
own affirmations. 

(c.) The lack of all the correctives of our common ex- 
perience. 

(d.) The lack of exercise of will in its higher sense, due 

{$,) To the subordination of the higher powers to the vital 
and sensational. Hence vagaries. 

(/.) The subordination of rational and moral powers, 
and unrestraint of emotional. 

(g.) The great concentration of attention on a few ob- 
jects, or a very narrow sphere, resulting in unusual vivid- 
ness. Abstraction. 

(h.) The force of habit in determining the direction of 
thought, and in awakening Expectation. 

Somnambulism. 

This has been defined as " a dream acted. ^' 
If the points already noted be reflected upon it will be 
seen that they cover all the somnambulist^s experiences, 
except his movements. This important exception leads us 
to add that the tendency of a strong feeling is always 
toward action, that when an active condition of the nerv- 
ous centers is caused, the dreamer rises to accomplish the 
end of which he dreams. This condition is certainly not 
fully understood, but as certainly there are indications in 
our wakeful life of a like response of our nervous powers 
to concentrated attention or feeling. The absolute absorp- 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 95 

tion of purpose, passing beyond the inactivity of the com- 
mon dream, combined with a highly wrought nervous con- 
dition, suffices to suggest, at least, the lines on which we 
must seek for an interpretation of the facts. 

Hypnotism. 

What has been said of Somnambulism, in addition to 
the points mentioned under dreaming, serves to explain a 
large part of the so-called hypnotic conditions. Here the 
somnambulic state is artificially produced, and the patient 
is brought into singular rapport with the operator. 

The low stages of consciousness, already referred to in 
dreams, open the way for the operator to reach the sub- 
ject by his suggestions, and to give direction to the strained 
attention, the complete concentration, of the patient's 
mind. That suggestion becomes the dominant idea, and 
overrides all sense-impressions, and contradicts the plainest 
facts of sense. His concentration develops a strength that 
enables him to do what would be beyond his general 
physical powers, — a concentration indeed, absolutely im- 
possible in the general conditions of life, and yet not with- 
out parallels, — as the case of Sidney Smithes friend who 
thought himself on his horse at the toll-gate, or of Neander, 
who thought one of his legs had suddenly groAvn short 
because he walked home, unconsciously, with one foot on 
the curb and one in the gutter. 

Nor is the strange condition of the hypnotic patient who 
is told in a given state to do a certain deed at a definite 
future time, without its analogue in the power, already 
referred to, of certain people to fix the mind on the time 
for waking, and to sleep oblivious of it till the hour strikes. 

A parallel to the fact that the experiences of one hyp- 
notic state are only recalled in another is suggested by 
Murrav in the breaks between the various conditions of 



96 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

our conscious life, as when an enthusiasm sways our con- 
duct onW when it is fully present to consciousness, or as 
when a break in a procedure is repaired, if the act be 
habitual, by starting at the beginning of the series again. 

In the laws suggested, — especially in Abstraction and 
Attention, in Association and Expectation, and in the re- 
sponse of the nervous powers to the mental conditions, 
even in the half-wakened state, the wonders of Hypnotism 
may be mostly explained, and perhaps explanations of all 
of them may be suggested, if not fully marked out. 

We may refer, in conclusion, to Baldwin's mode of 
detecting illusions, by observation of (1) Diminished in- 
tensity, (2) Absence of definite locality, (3) Inappropriate 
escort. 

Carpenter, chs. 15 and 16. Sully, lUusions. Taine, vol, 1, Stan- 
ley Hall, Mind, Nos. 21 and 30. Wundt, 2 : 375-8. Porter, 336-351. 
James, 2 : 85 sq. Griesinger, Mental Pathology and Therapeutics, 
Murray, 241-273. Baldwin, 244 sq. Proceedings of Eng. Soc. 
Psych. Research, Dec, '84, Univ. of Penn. Siebert's Commission. 

Constitutive Principles of Knowledge. 

We have already learned that in the act of Perception 
are involved Consciousness, Space, Time, Substance, 
Causality. 

That is to say that an act of Knowledge involves all 
these, and that they all are essential to its being 
Knowledge. 

To know things at all we must know them as existent, 
over against ourselves, in temporal and spatial relations, 
and reciprocally related, — that is, causally conditioned. 
We are now ready to examine 

(1.) The nature of these Principles, and 

(2.) Their origin. 

I. Consciousness. 
•(].) What is it ? 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 97 

In defining Psychology, Consciousness was also defined 
in a very general way. It was seen to be the distinguish- 
ing feature of psychical life, — not a power, nor a faculty, 
nor a consensus of faculties, but a state, or condition, 
accompanying every activity of the mind. 

In the infant life the affective element in consciousness, 
that is, the mere feeling awakened, is altogether j)redom- 
inant, but the conclusion commonly drawn from this, that 
there is no perception of the difference of subject and ob- 
ject, is beyond the known facts. There is certainly no 
formulated distinction, but yet a sentient human being 
must be supposed to have at least an incipient impression 
of a difference between the feeling and its subject. The 
extensity of sensations, already referred to, must compel 
this inference. 

The development of intelligence is the making this dif- 
ference definite and distinct. There is no real knowledge 
possible, no understanding of the meaning of things, 
apart from a clear perception of the difference of subject 
and object. Consciousness involves that, for it is aware- 
ness of self through relation to a not-self. It is the con- 
dition, therefore, of all knowing, willing, feeling. 

This distinction of subject and object in consciousness 
involves the presence of both factors in a single instant of 
experience. The moment of present consciousness involves 
both the mind and the mind^s operations in a single view. 
Mr. Spencer's dictum that '^Mt is impossible to be at the 
same time that which regards and that which is regarded," 
is sheer assumption. Precisely that *^ impossibility "' takes 
place in every conscious moment. We do not survey the 
past moment, merely, in memory, but \ye watch our present 
mental state with clear consciousness that it is our own. 

The fact that consciousness involves tlie discrimination 
of subject and object does not justify Mr. Spencer's de- 



98 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

scription of it as " a feeling of difference/^ We may be 
conscious of that, but consciousness is not that. We may 
be conscious also of an unchanging condition, although 
the contemplation of it tends to reduce consciousness to a 
minimum. It is ^^ a feeling of difference^' only in the 
sense that it involves subject and object, but we are 
conscious even then, as Baldwin suggests, of two states be- 
fore we are aware of their difference. We are thus 
conscious of things in relation, — not alone of relations, 
to which the definition would confine us, and thus shut us 
out from knowledge of things as they are. 

But the content of consciousness is also broader than 
the present moment and its union of object and subject. 
When we look back, in memory, and when we look for- 
ward, in expectation, consciousness affirms the identity of 
the beholder of past and future with the present conscious 
subject. In it the past and future have become present. 
That is to say that amid the diversities of its various states 
it is still a unity. 

Consciousness thus involves a Personality, a Soul, which 
persists amid its various states. Without that it is itself 
inexplicable. That will be seen more clearly as we pass 
now to discuss the attempts to explain it. 

Refs. Lotze. 91-96. Hoffding, 44-48, Porter, 88-99. Baldwin, 
43 sq Bain, 9. Dewey, 2. Murray, 279. Bowne, c. vii. Bascom, 
20, 209-212, and his Problems, 108 sq. Hamilton, Lect 11. 

(2.) Explanations of its origin. 

It is not purposed here to give a history of opinion on 
this fundamental question, but to indicate two or three 
typical accounts of consciousness, and to point out that 
which seems to be demanded by the facts. 

Consciousness may be assumed to b'e a product of the 
forces of the universe, or it may be regarded as the con- 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 90 

stifcutive element of a rational soul, inexplicable, and un- 
derivable save from Intelligence itself. 

Mr. Spencer, for example, finds ^' changes " to be the 
raw material of consciousness, and the organization of 
these its development. The primitive jelly is differentiated 
in its inner and outer parts, through separate conditions, 
and hence comes contrast of functions. The skin per- 
manently *^ assumes the office of receiving all those im- 
pressions which form the raw material of intelligence."^ 
These impressions are fundamental, as the specific changes 
which occur as soon as there is a rudimentary system, 
depend on these. To be of use these impressions must be 
adjusted and related, and this implies a common center of 
communication. As the impressions cannot pass through 
this simultaneously, they must pass in succession. As the 
complication increases, in response to complex phenomena, 
the variety and rapidity of changes must increase, and so 
there will be an unbroken series of these changes, and in 
this proportion a Conscious7iess. " The progress of the 
correspondence between the organism and its environment 
inevitably involves more and more complete reduction 
of the sensorial changes to a succession, and by so doing 
inevitably involves the evolution of a consciousness."" 
(Ed. of 1855, p. 501.) 

Now by this language Mr. Spencer either means that 
consciousness is developed out of the unconscious by natural 
processes, and so is a product of natural forces, — or else he 
is describing a psychical process in language that must 
mislead the general reader. In his last edition he says he 
does not mean that material actions become mental actions, 
but is only showing a parallelism between a physical and 
the correlative psychical evolution, — but adds that he has 
not changed his doctrine since the earlier edition here 
quoted. If so his language is most unfortunate, as its 



100 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOCtY. 

natural, and general, interpretation leads to the view that 
consciousness is a step in material evolution. So Mr. 
Huxley talks of thought as ^^ a function of matter '^ when 
highly organized, though asserting an impassable barrier 
between consciousness and nerve processes. And so Mr. 
Tyndall finds the promise and potency of all life in matter, 
— endowing matter, however, with qualities which are 
unknown to our experience of it. 

But it must be carefully noted, in following this skilful 
development through Mr. Spencer's pages, that its first 
step is impossible without consciousness, germinally. 
There is no point of development at which the transition 
from nerve-tremors to conciousness becomes tliinhahle, — 
or can be stated. Adjustment, relation, orderly succession, 
imply intelligence behind the forces, but they give no 
suggestion of the birth of intelligence from force. -No 
'' reduction of sensorial changes to succession,^^ however 
'^ complete," can cast the slightest light on the evolution 
of a consciousness which is not already involved in the 
thought of them. 

John Stuart Mill, in his Examination of Sir William 
Hamilton, has another statement of the origin of Conscious- 
ness, which may serve to show even more clearly than Mr. 
Spencer's, the claims and the assumptions of this type of 
thought. 

All that is permanent, he says, in our idea of mind, 
resolves itself, on examination, into a permanent possi- 
bility of the various states of mind. That is to say that 
we never really know Mind, but only a succession of 
feelings. There is, to borrow another^s figure, a ''thread 
of conciousness," a mere succession of states, and a 
permanent possibility of their recurrence. 

How then explain the '' unity of consciousness," — our 
acknowledged notion that these states have a background 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 101 

in a stable and permanent self ? Mr. Mill answers that 
his theory postulates certain truths, *'all of which are 
proved by experience " : '* First, — the human mind is 
capable of expectation/'' '^second, — the laws of the Asso- 
ciation of Ideas," '' third, — Associations produced by con- 
tiguity become more certain and rapid by repetition,'^ 
fourth, — the ideas gradually become inseparable from the 
facts or phenomena which suggested them. 

This unity then is due to associations, and its continu- 
ance is a matter of expectation, — and that is all there is of 
real permanence, a possibility of feeling. 

Mr. Mill distinguishes this from the permanent possi- 
bility of sensation, which is equivalent, with him, to mat- 
ter. This latter is a definite part, and a small one, of the 
series which, in its entireness, forms my conscious exist- 
ence, — while my notion of myself includes all possibilities 
which I may imagine, — whether experienced or not, — and 
emotions, thoughts, volitions, as well. These do not occur 
in groups, as do possibilities of sensation. '^ And most 
important," — ^^possibilities of sensation'are possibilities of 
it to other beings as well as to me, but the particular series 
of feelings which constitutes my own life is confined to 
myself." 

The external becomes thus a series of our sensations, 
common to us and others, and the mind a series of feelings 
peculiar to us, and by inseparable association, and by ex- 
pectation, welded into an apparent unity. That is, there 
is no real unity, — no mind, regarded as a substantial basis 
of its states. 

Every part of this theory is singularly full of assump- 
tion. ^' Experience " does not show that expectation and 
association are capable of creating consciousness. AVe can- 
not even think of these without assuming it. '* Associa- 
tion presupposes thought," says Mansel, '' instead of 



102 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

thought being the offspring of association/' Memory 
must also be involved here^ and that assumes a permanent 
and conscious self. Association is here assumed to pro- 
duce a new factor, and its office is only to reproduce. It 
associates, but never creates, 

^' Capable of expectation" is the assumption of conscious- 
ness in its very statement, and of a permanent, conscious 
self, able to reach toward the future while preserving its 
identity in the present. But Mr. MilFs self, which is thus 
capable, is only a series, or cluster, of feelings. How can 
'^ expectation " be asserted of them ? 

^^ Permanent possibility " is the suggestion, in a vague 
way, of power, as Dr. Murray has indicated, — and must 
mean the same as cause. That cannot be a self amid the 
series of feelings, as he says, on this hypothesis, — and 
otherwise must be a series of feelings : that is a series, or 
cluster, of feelings is the antecedent (since ''cause'' with 
Mill, means only that) of another mental state, — and that 
fact in no way suggests an element of permanency. 

It need hardly be added that Mr. Mill's statement that 
we know ourselves as a series of feelings contradicts all of 
our experience. We TcnoiD ourselves as experiencing certain 
feelings, and so true is this that it requires a subtile argu- 
ment to even awaken a doubt as to this, and to turn one's 
thought to the possihiUty that one may only know states 
of an Ego absolutely concealed from us. Indeed, Mr. 
Mill's use of '' series " involves a consciousness of a self 
which has experiences of the succession. What has been 
said of the Unity of Consciousness makes this theory im- 
possible. It has no explanation of this patent fact. 

Mr. Mill frankly admits the difficulties of his theory, so 
frankly, indeed, that one wonders that he published the 
theory and the admission. He sees that either the mind is 
something different from any series of feelings, or possibility 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 103 

of feeling, or that a series of feelings can be aware of itself 
as a series, " a paradox, ex liypothesi." He says we here 
come face to face with the mysteries of being, and would 
better accept the inexplicable fact, — but that hardly in- 
volves the need of forming an inexplicable theory. 

In an appendix to a later edition of his book, Mr. Mill 
admits ^' an original element ^^ which has no community 
of nature with any of the things answering to our names, 
and to which one cannot give any name but its own pecu- 
liar one, without impMng some false or ungrounded 
theory, — the Ego or Self. 

Mr. James, in his chapter on Consciousness, while cri- 
ticizing Mr. MilFs views sharply, seems to fall into a not 
dissimilar conclusion. He finds no need of a soul, in 
Psychology, but thinks the Thought, ever appropriative 
of former thought, and all that that in turn called its 
own, is the only Thinker demanded by the science. There 
is a stream of thought, each part of which as, " 1/' can 
remember those that went before and know the things 
they know, and emphasize and specially care for certain 
ones among them as '' me,^^ and appropriate to these the 
rest. The '^ me " includes bodily existence felt at the 
time (nucleus), the past feelings resembling the present, 
and all associated with it, — clothes, friends, honors, &c. 
This is the objective Me, as the knowing I is indicated 
above. 

When asked why passing thoughts should inherit each 
other's possessions, he falls back on '^ the total sense or 
meaning of the world, '^ (p. 401). Psychology need not 
look beyond the formula that '' thought is itself the 
thinker.^" 

It is difficult to see how Mr. James has done more than 
Mr. Mill to explain tlie facts of consciousness. He affirms 
that MilFs theory lacks in that the sensations, 2)cr se, have 



104 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

no tie, but are tied, artificially, by "laws of thought/' 
But James gives us no real tie, nothing that in any degree 
explains the unity of consciousness ; his Thought is an 
assumed unity, and its " appropriativeness " is only 
another way of speaking of the mind^s power. James puts 
a permanent element into the single Thought, instead of 
in a series of states, — and gives to that single passing state 
the attributes of the rational soul. A Thought appro- 
priating what is behind it is a loose way of describing 
what is generally called a Soul, and Mr. James' descriiDtion 
of the powers of this Thought, p. 340, might be recast, 
and better represent the known facts, if Soul, or Mind, 
were substituted for Thought. There is no light thrown 
on the Unity of the Soul, — on the persistence of conscious- 
ness, on its clear involvement of conscious subject and 
object conceived. To say that Thought thinks is not to 
add clearness to the discussion. A permanent element is 
assumed here as clearly as on Mr. Mill's hypothesis. 

The examination of these typical theories of conscious- 
ness makes evident that no statement of a theory can be 
made which does not assume consciousness as its very con- 
dition. But to say that is to say that the distinction of 
subject and object is involved in all thiuking, and the ex- 
amination of this consciousness of the subject, or self, 
shows us a persistent unity in continuous states. 

These explanations offer no light upon that fact. They 
tend to break down the distinction of subject and object, 
and they leave wholly unexplained that unity of which as- 
sociative states are but reflections, and upon which, in- 
deed, all other unity seems to be based. 

Through Mr. Spencer's process of nerve- tremors, or of 
psychical states gradually brought into serial continuity, 
or Mr. Mill's " permanent possibility of feeling," or Mr. 
James' Thought, with its appropriative function, there is 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 105 

no possibility of constructing a unity such as we know in 
consciousness. Their very conceptions of succession, per- 
manency, and approj^riation, involve an assumption of that 
they would explain. 

We must accept the facts as ultimate. Consciousness is 
original, inexplicable, involves subject and object, a unity 
amid its various experiences, a soul which reveals itself, 
and is known in, its states. 

Spencer, 324 sq. (ed. 1855), 491 sq, (Id.) I, 403 sq. (last ed.)— cf. 
materialistic expressions, First Principles, 217, 559. Contra. Psych, 
1 : 158 and 616, cf. Fiske, Pop, Sci. Mo., Sept., '91, p. 598. 

Mill, Exam, of Hamilton, cc. 11 and 12. ]\Iurray, 280 sq. Lotze, 
93-7. James, 1 : 290-402 (cf. 340). Ladd, 585-613. Bowne. 115 sq. 
Wnndt, 2 : 305. Martineau, Essay on Cerebral Psych. (Bain). 

II. Time. 

Our notion of time is that of definitely limited portion 
of duration, or continued existence. Whatever is pre- 
sented to the mind has duration, and any given j)ortion of 
this continuance is time, and in time all the successive 
states of that presented are known. That is, time is not suc- 
cession, — nor is time duration, — but succession takes place 
in time, and time measures off duration. Time is ultimate, 
as a notion : it admits of no ex2:>lanation or analysis. It 
depends on a permanent self, already shown, and it can- 
not be thought apart from that. It is the perception by 
this self of the relations of succession, of priority and 
posteriority, in the events or thoughts contemplated. It 
is not, therefore, in the mind only : it reflects the actual 
relations of things and thoughts, and is thus itself real. 

Our idea of time involves, as was said, a constant amid 
changes, a memory, or recognition of the state past, and a 
comparison of it and the present state of consciousness. 

The futility of the sensationalist explanation is made 
evident by this analysis. Sensations may succeed one 



106 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

another indefinitely without having any power to suggest 
succession. Change is not the only necessity to the notion 
of time and could not give it without a mind already able 
to relate the changes. 

Yet the sensationalist must, in some form, put into the 
sensations what cannot belong to them. Mr. Spencer 
shows his successive states repeated at various intervals 
until the notion of time is abstracted from the states, but 
he assumes that the sensations involve the succession, and 
that successive feelings are one with consciousness of 
succession. But every step of the argument is an assump- 
tion. A relating factor is assumed, — or association is 
endowed with a power to build up a consciousness not 
involved in the states associated. For, even if an associa- 
tion of states could build itself into an inseparable union, 
there is nothing in that to suggest the notion of priority 
and posteriority. 

We have already seen the futility of the effort of the 
Sensationalist to explain the chief feature of Memory, — 
Eecognition. But failing there he must again fail in his 
effort to account for time without the previous assumption 
of a self which can compare past and present and recognize 
the past as a state previously experienced. 

References. 

James, 1 : 610 sq. Sully, 306, 254 sq. Porter, 567 sq. McCosh, 
Defence, 444. Baldwin, 179 sq. Hoffding, 184-190. Hill, 270 sq. 
Bascom, 212. Spencer, Pt. 6, c. 15 (or old ed , p. 246 sq.). Bain, 
Mental and Moral Science, 184. Bowne, 127 sq. Murray, 287 sq. 
Spencer, on Memory, 556-62 (old ed.) 

III. 8pacG. 

It is impossible for the mind to conceive of objects save 
as related to itself or to some other objects. To think of 
them thus, as out of one another, and not of ourselves, is 
to think of them in spatial relations. We are concerned 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 107 

here with the question as to the explanation of this 
universal fact of consciousness. We cannot think of 
things save in space. 

How can we explain the psychological fact ? The 
question as to the ultimate nature of space, whether it is a 
substance, a relation, or a form of thought, is not here 
under discussion. 

There can be no explanation which does not assume, as 
its starting point, a mind, a self-conscious activity, which 
relates its various states. That granted, local signs and 
the various sensations derived from touch, sight, the 
muscular sense, and the extensity of all sensations, become 
so many data for the active mind to work upon, but unless 
that is granted no theory can be stated which does not 
either virtually assume it, or which does not beg the very 
question at issue. 

There is no need of assuming the indefensible position 
of the older intuitionalism, that the mind is fully equipped 
with knowledge prior to all experience, but it is essential 
to recognize a native power in mind of relating spatially 
objects presented to it. It is involved, essentially, in the 
nature of perception, in the objectifying activity which 
we have found primary in mental life. To think of a not- 
self implies it : the very extensity of sensations involves it. 

The first perception, then, would involve the notion of 
space, without the need of further experience. Indeed, 
experience without this notion is inconceivable, unless we 
can conceive of a condition of absolute subjectivity. 

But not even a relating power of the Mind can explain 
our notion of space. It is not merely the result of a 
mental synthesis, the reaction of mind on sensations, 
uniting these by a kind of mental chemistry through 
localization and movement. This ''genetic'' theory of 
Wundt does not account for the objective nature of space. 



108 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Localization is spatial ; movement at once suggests space ; 
but in neither case is a psychical synthesis the explanation 
of the notion : it must be due to a native power of mind 
to see things as they are, and no conceivable relation of 
things can be stated save in language of space. 

The real relation of things, then, and the perception of 
that real relation by the mind, which is fitted to combine 
and relate various sensations in conformity to the relations 
of objects awakening them, — are the two essential factors 
in the explanation of our notion of space. 

The transference of the problem to the experiences of 
the race (Evolution) does not seem to throw any light 
upon it : the element of time would not seem to simplify 
the passage from subjectivity to objective relations. 

The empirical theory fails utterly in its effort to trace 
the genesis of '^ consciousness of space . . . out of com- 
ponents which considered individually contain no conscious- 
ness of space. '^ (Spencer.) It is the effort already made 
familiar to us, — to build up a constitutive principle of 
thought out of single, isolated, sensations, which do not 
contain the elements of the thought. Here the attempt 
is made to reduce space to terms of time and muscular 
sensations. A distance thought of is measured by our 
conception of effort, and the time involved to cover it, — 
that is, our sensations are successive. But we do not think 
of these successive points as disappearing, for we have 
simultaneous sensations of touch and sight, and thus we 
come to think of them as coexistent. These points be- 
come signs of limits in the succession of our muscular 
sensations, and by abstraction from the sensations there are 
left to us coexistent points, — or space. 

It will be noted at once that we have, in reality, only 
sensations after all, — and these, as we have already seen, 
involve no succession, no coexistence, — save as the mind is 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 109 

assumed to note these. Even then we have but sensations 
related, and these are subjective^ while the notion of space 
is of objective relations. The use of such imagery as ^^the 
sweep of the arm ^^ (Bain)^ ^^the movement of the eye'"' 
(Mili)^ &c.^ generally involves the idea of space in its 
very statement. The association of these with the formed 
spatial notion is very far away from the derivation of the 
notion from them. 

Moreover, the empiricist view of the soul, in its early 
stages, as merely sensitive, is inconsistent with the as- 
sumption of a consciousuess of sensations as a series, and 
as belonging to itself. That, as Watson says, is a thinking 
consciousness. 

It should also be noted that in much of the discussion of 
the Empiricists, there is a confusion of the original spatial 
notion with the thought of a definite measurement of 
space. 

Baldwin, 121-2, 133-7. Hoffditig, 190 and 200-2. HiU, 200-7. 
Spencer, Pt. 6, c. 14, and Mind, July, '90. Ward, Encyc. Brit., 20 : 
53, 54. Ribot. German Psycli., 96 sq. Watson (contra Spencer), 
Mind, Oct., '90. James, 2 : 268-9 and sq. Bain, Pt. 2, c. 1. Mc- 
Cosh, Fund. Truths, 135, 143, 466 sq. Intuitions, 204. Bowne, 
Introd., 133 sq. Metaphysics, 185 sq. Mill, c. 13, Lotze, 47 sq. 
Porter, 537 sq. Dewey, 162 sq. Murray, 290 sq. 

IV. Substance. 

We think of the objects revealed in the act of conscious- 
ness as something different from thought itself, — as having 
a separate and real existence, over against ourselves, as 
revealing themselves to us in their attributes, or qualities. 
Consciousness of self involves this consciousness of not- 
self, and this latter is inexplicable without the assumption 
of a thinking self, with power to relate the various sensa- 
tions received from it. 

The conscious self, then, already endowed with powers 



110 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

of association and comparison, and permanent amid its 
changing states, is the first condition of the explanation of 
the idea of things, or substances. 

That self is conscious of an extended something, not 
itself. It grasps this : it has feelings different from those 
received when it grasps a portion of its own body : the 
idea of an outer, another, grows. Internal feelings shift, 
change : every return to this awakens the same feeling of 
an external which is also permanent. Growing intelligence 
takes cognizance of form, color, size, hardness, &c., &c., 
and says that the object is round, black, small, hard. 
That is, there is the thought of a thing, or substance, 
possessed of certain qualities, and known in and by these. 
In some such way must the idea grow in the child^s mind, 
— but it is all the time essentially assumed and acted upon 
from the dawn of intelligence. 

But the sense of a real objectivity, of substantial things, 
cannot be due merely to a series of feelings related by a 
conscious intelligence, — nor do we explain the belief by 
saying that intelligence involves subject and object. There 
is a peculiar belief in the reality of this objectivity. Our 
idea of substance is as far as possible from a union of ideas, 
or conceived attributes. The explanation of it cannot be 
completed without the further condition of a veritable ex- 
ternal world which is presented to consciousness, and which 
consciousness apprehends as external. Any other explana- 
tion fails to meet the element of reality, external, non- 
conscious, which is essential to our idea of substance. 
Keal objectivity cannot be explained by any subjective ne- 
cessity : sensations cannot of themselves carry us beyond 
a subjective state. There must be assumed a correspond- 
ence of the facts of consciousness to reality, — and to assert 
that I have but the idea of a thing, when a thing presents 
itself to my consciousness, is to make my idea of substance 



SPECIAL PSYCTtOLOrxY. Ill 

something other than that of the universal conscious- 
ness. 

But the discussion of this issue introduces us to the 
philosophic problems of knowing and being, and the dis- 
cussion would better be postponed till the psychological 
questions before us are considered. 

The various explanations of the idea of substance of- 
fered by the advocates of sensationalism repeat the fallacies 
already indicated in connection with space, time, and con- 
sciousness itself. The idea is explained entirely in terms 
of sensation, and hence loses its objectivity, — and it is 
boldly affirmed that the sense of the external is the con- 
sciousness of our own activities (Bain). 

On this theory the associability of sensations would be 
supposed to accomplish the object, — certain ones occurring 
together in uniform association, till we became accustomed 
to regard them as really united, and bind them in a single 
name. Locke, who stated the theory as clearly as any of 
the later Empiricists, see 11, c. 23 § 1, says the idea would 
be of use to mankind, but we cannot get it from sensation or 
reflection, and only signify by it " an uncertain supposi- 
tion of we know not what, i. e. (of something whereof 
we have no particular, distinct, positive) idea, which we 
take to be the substratum, or support, of those ideas w^e 
do know." I, 4, § 18. 

But this is not our idea of substance, nor can any union 
of sensations explain the objectivity of our notion. 

The explanation is not helped by the assumption of a 
substance or force which generates consciousness. We 
have an even greater difficulty, already considered, — and 
having even reached consciousness by this impossible wa}^ 
we are confronted by precisely the same problem as now. 

McCosh, Fund. Truths, 135 sq. 446 sq. Intuitions, 187. Lotze* 
113. Porter, 192 sq. 621-040. Lowndes, Philos. of Prim. Beliefs, 



112 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

140. Sully. 171, 198. Bascom, 187sq. Dewey, 161 sq. Hill, 175-6. 
Bowne, 160 sq. Bain, Senses and Intellect, 375-8, note on Subj. and 
Obj. in App. to Emotions and Will Murray, 295. Spencer, old ed. 
p. 59 and cf. new ed., vol. 2. § 467. Hamilton's Discussions (Wright's 
ed.), 173. Locke, I, 4, 18 and II, 23. Laurie, Metaph. Nov. et Vetus 
70, 148-152, 161, 260. 

Trustwortliiness of our Knoiuledge. 

In the discussion of consciousness and substance we 
have noted a philosophical assumption that in neither do 
we know the ultimate reality, — consciousness itself, or the 
thing itself, — but only its phenomenal manifestations of 
the reality which is hidden, inscrutably, from us. 

This doctrine builds on the so-called relativity of knowl- 
edge. Taking the undeniable ground that we know only 
as we are brought into relations with the thing known, 
there is added the assumption that this relativity excludes 
a knowledge of reality, and confines us to phenomena, 
which are things seen through the medium of a uiental 
relation. The self is not known ; substance is not known ; 
the mind is rendered incapable of real knowledge by these 
limitations of its nature. And so with space and time. 
The mind can know only in these limits of relation, 
and hence cannot conceive of absolute infinity of either, 
nor can it think their absolute divisibility. Reason is 
weak, compelled to wander between these inscrutables, 
necessitated to assume both, and yet unable to conceive of 
either. 

The theory leads us far beyond the domain of psycho- 
logy, — but it builds on psychological data, and as such 
may receive passing attention. Applied to the higher 
conceptions of thought, to the Infinite and the Absolute, 
it has become a philosophical doctrine, under the name of 
Agnosticism. 

The literature must be sought in Kant^s Critique, 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 113 

Hamilton's doctrine of the Unconditioned, the applica- 
tions of this by Mansel and Spencer, the Mysticism of 
Schelling, the contrary positions of Cousin. We may here 
only indicate the fallacy of the theory from the psycho- 
logical point of view, and add a few hints for direction in 
fuller philosophical inquiry. 

1. Our positive view of consciousness and substance 
involves the knowing in relation, but asserts the truth of 
the knowledge. 

Knowdng things in relation is not ignorance ; it is 
knowing the things, and any other supposition strikes at 
the validity of intelligence. The assumption that a quality 
is not a revelation of the thing to consciousness, is the as- 
sertion of a deceptive principle at the foundationof thought. 
It is a misleading appearance, or it is a true indication 
of the nature of the thing it qualifies. Indeed, '^ the- 
thing-in-itself is a sheer assumption, — and if out of 
relation, since knowledge is of things in relation, it may 
not be discussed or assumed. The mind is not necessitat- 
ed to think of any such term of a relation as a ]30stulate for 
its own being. In short, to know things in relation must 
mean. the knowledge of hotli terms of the relation, — or the 
phrase is unmeaning. 

2. In every act of perception we have a definite thing 
and an infinite space beyond. 

Both terms are equally valid, — and the infinite is as real 
as the finite. 

3. There is no suggestion of the impotence of reason in 
these assertions regarding space and time. Every thought 
of them, as terms of relation, involves limitation, and to 
say that we cannot think of them as out of relation is to 
say that we cannot rationally stultify ourselves. 

4:. The distinction of substance and quality is merely 
logical : the knowledge of a quality is, per se, a knowledge 



114 SPEfllAL PSYriHOLOaY. 

of the substance in so far as it is revealed by the quality. 
To assume that further knowledge will contradict and 
undermine what is really given through this quality, is 
unwarrantable. 

5. Kant^s reduction of space and time to mere subjective 
forms of thought is the denial also of the objectivity of 
the relations of things, which is asserted by the conscious- 
ness, and which cannot be denied, as is seen in Kant's own 
work, without striking at the foundations of all cer- 
tainty. 

Eegarding the further inferences drawn by these philoso- 
phers in respect to our knowledge of the Infinite, it may 
be remarked, 

1. That the definitions of Absolute and Infinite are so 
constructed as to beg the whole question. They lay down 
conditions destructive of all thought, and then affirm that 
we cannot think under them. The Absolute and Infinite 
are not out of relation, but out of dependent relation. 
They are not negative conceptions : they come to us as 
positive, in addition to our notions of the finite. 

2. If the definitions can be held to, the inference should 
go beyond Spencer's : out of relation, they should be beyond 
discussion. A thing out of relation is not merely unthink- 
able : so far as we know it is non-existent. To say that 
a thing is out of relation, and yet must be thought as a 
term of a relation, is to darken counsel. 

3. Mr. Spencer affirms a great deal regarding the un- 
knowable. His need to do it is a revelation of the un- 
tenableness of his theory. 

4. If all definition is limitation (Spinoza) then to predi- 
cate aught of the Infinite is, ex hypothesi, to destroy it : 
if it is capable of all predicates then it can be known as 
well as be. 

5. The theory cannot deny that the First Cause may he 



SPECIAL PSYrHOLOGY. Il5 

conscious mind. Then it cannot deny the possibility of 
a revelation. (Martineau.) 

6. If the speculative reason is mendacious, as it is in 
Kant and Spencer, how are we to trust the moral nature, — 
the practical reason ? 

7. The theory leaves no secure basis for morals. Good- 
ness and right, on this theory, are not one with infinite 
goodness and right. 

8. The Unknowable, in the sense of Spencer is, as Oaird 
says, '' the thinnest abstraction of logic, ^^ and may not 
claim our veneration or belief. 

9. Limitation is not untrustworthiness. 

References. Kant's Antinomies (Miiller's ed. of Critique), pp. 368 
sq. cf. Fleming, Vocab. of Philos. "Antinomy." Hamilton's Dis- 
cussions, Wright's ed. 454 sq. Mansel's Limits, espec. lects. 2 and 3, 
cf. pp. 84-5. Spencer, First Principles, espec ce. 3 and 4. (Schel- 
ling, Cousin, &c., in Hamilton's Essay). 

Martinemt, Essays on " Science, Nescience, and Faith," " Man- 
sel," " Sir Wm. Hamilton," (p, 268 sq.) Study of Religion, vol. I, 
124: Diman. Theistic Argument: Harris, Philos. Basis of Theism, c. 
2 : H. B. Smith, Faith and Philos. (Rev. of Hamilton) : Porter, 645 
sq. Birk's, Mod. Phys. Fatalism. Murray, 298-300 : Caird, Philos. 
of Relig., c. 1. Schurman, Theism, cc. 1, 2. Fisher's Grounds of 
Theistic and Christian Belief. 

V. Causation, 

The changes which are going on about us, and which 
we are conscious of in ourselves, are conceived of as having 
necessary relations to one another. When a cannon is 
fired, the noise of the explosion is not regarded as an event 
merely sequent to the firing, but as occasioned by it. 
When we speak of causes we mean this necessary connec- 
tion whereby one thing produces changes in another, and 
men everywhere so regard the causal relation. They never 
see a change without referring it to a cause, and they 
cannot think of changes, orderly or chaotic, without 



116 SPEriAL PSYrHOLOGY. 

assuming a force operating among the things thought of, 
and producing the changes observed. 

A conception of the Universe as orderly, as an object of 
scientific observation and generalization, would be im- 
possible without this mental principle. The notion of 
uniformity itself compels us to posit a cause of orderly 
sequence, or to assume that uniformity is a chance-order, 
which is a contradiction in thought. 

The principle of causation is thus one of tlie original, 
constitutive principles of the human mind, inexplicable 
save on the assumption of the being of a rational soul. 

Attempts have been made, however, to explain this 
principle on the basis of our experience, and by means of 
the power of association already so fully considered. 

Hume pushed this theory to its logical limits, and 
declared there was no such principle of necessary connec- 
tion, — that long association of certain sequences brought 
us, by custom, to connect them by a bond of imagined 
necessity. 

This is not to explain the notion as it exists among men ; 
it is to destroy it. It offers an explanation of an idea 
substituted for that of causality. It assumes that a 
constant association of ideas can produce the notion of a 
necessary connection, — but association, however close and 
constant, does not convey that. The element of necessity 
is untouched, and the absolute universality of the idea is 
not explained. 

Reid said that on Hume^s princijole we ought to have 
come to believe that the night is the cause of the day. 
The association is unbroken, constant, universal, and no 
thought of causation results. 

Modern empiricists have added nothing of value to 
Hume^s fundamental thought. 

Mr. Mill, however, tried to introduce a new element in 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 117 

answer to Reid^s objection. He says, '' Invariability of 
succession is found by observation to obtain between every 
fact in nature and some other fact which has preceded it. ■'^ 
This invariable sequence usually subsists not between a 
consequent and a single antecedent, but between it and the 
sum of several antecedents. The real cause is the total of 
antecedents. He does not use the phrase as synonymous 
with the antecedent which it has invariably followed in 
our past experience, which would be open to Reid's 
objection, — but adds to ''^invariable" the word ^'uncon- 
ditional/' as completing our notion of cause. The former 
would result in " conjunctions in some sense accidental," 
as day and night. '' Unconditional " means " subject to 
no other than negative conditions," " cause " being con- 
fined to the assemblage of positive conditions. For 
example, the series of the earth's motions is not a case of 
causation, as it is conditioned on the sun's attraction, — 
though a case of invariable sequence. 

Mr. Mill has not thrown the slightest light thus on the 
explanation of the principle unless his '' unconditional " 
means ^^ necessary," — and he is not wholly clear. He but 
illustrates the fact that a full explanation of an event 
must involve knowledge of all its antecedents. In his 
later discussion, in the third book of his Logic, this 
common failure of the empiricist comes to fuller light. 
It is not the essential idea of cause with which he deals, 
but the explanation of particular causes. His conception 
of a stellar universe in which events succeed one another 
at random, does not do away with the thought of a cause 
behind each random event. He says, " the progress of 
experience, therefore, has dissipated the doubt which 
must have rested on the universality of the law of causa- 
tion," — distinctly dealing with tlie discovery of special 
causes, and not with the principle before us. All his 



118 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

'^ partial uniformities of sequence " fail to explain the 
genesis of the idea that every event has a cause, and that 
that cause is necessarily, and not merely sequently, related 
to its effect. 

Bain and Spencer fall into the same line of argument, 
and dwell on particular causes instead of the principle of 
cause. Experience may demonstrate the one, and fail to 
throw any light on the being of the other. 

The empiricist, therefore, has failed to explain the 
point which demands explanation. His discussion of 
uniform sequence is not an explanation of necessary 
sequence. The only explanation which his theory allows 
does not touch the problem. A notion distinct, universal, 
fundamental in all our thought of the universe, defies his 
analysis, and compels us to assume the insufficiency of his 
philosophy. Indeed, as here, so in our discussions of 
consciousness, substance, space, time, the thing explained 
is not the notion as it is held universally among men. 

Something other than the universal notion is in every 
case discussed, and in so far as there is explanation it is 
the substituted notion which is made clear. The notions 
stand as original, inexplicable, constitutional. 

Beferences. 

McCosh, Intuitions, p. 263 sq. Lowndes, Philos. of Primary 
Beliefs, 189 sq. cf. contra Mill, esp. pp. 204-11. Porter, 569 sq. 
Mill, Logic, Bk. 3 : 5 : 2 sq., also, c. 21. Exam, of Hamilton, 1 : 239. 
Bain, Ment. and Mor. Sci.. p. 100, 187-8 (app.) ; Senses and Intellect, 
431, 520. Spencer, Psych., 2: 286-290; Data of Ethics. 47-9. 
Mozley, Essays Hist, and TheoL, vol, 2. Bascom, 217 sq. Bowen, 
Metaphysics and Ethics, c. 4. Hill, 184-9. Martineau, Study of 
Relig., 1 : 134-75, 144, 154-5, m-191. cf. Laurie, 180 sq. 

Bain, Mind, July, 1889, pp. 376 sq. 

The Keality of Subject and Object. 
In establishing the fact of the antithesis of subject and 
object, consciousness and substance, — and in showing that 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 119 

these facts are ultimate and irreducible in present thought, 
psychology, strictly speaking, reaches the limit of its in- 
quiry. But the question of the reality of these, and of 
their immediate relation in knowledge, although philo- 
sophical, cannot be separated from the previous discussion. 
Perception gives us these antithetical elements as equally 
real, — a thinking mind, an external thing, and asserts a 
relation of immediate, direct, unreasoned, knowledge be- 
tween them. Is the assertion of consciousness true or 
false ? 

The answers to this question divide philophers into 
several schools : 

I. Those who accept the reality of the relation in con- 
sciousness : 

{a.) who also affirm the reality of the antithesis of mind 
and matter : Natural Realists : 

(d.) who also deny the reality of the antithesis : Abso- 
lute Identity : Pantheism : 

(c.) who affirm the existence of the external, but also 
that the object of consciousness is but a modification of 
the perceiving mind, an idea : Oosmothetic Idealists. 

II. Those who deny the testimony of consciousness as 
to the originality and independence of mind and matter : 

{a.) who affirm that the object is deduced from the sub- 
ject : Idealists : 

(h.) who affirm the deduction of subject from the ob- 
ject : Materialists : 

{(•.) who affirm consciousness to be but phenomenal, and 
that there is no reality in either subject or object : Nihilists. 

Hamilton : Note C. to Reid's Works. 
Bowen's ed. of " p. 205. 
Murray s " " " pp. 87-90. 

In favor of the doctrine of Natural Realism, the so-called 
^'philosophy of Common Sense," it is remarked : 



120 SPEOIAL PSYCHOLOrrY. 

1st. That the veracity of consciousness involves it. 
The affirmation regarding the object is as clear and trust- 
worthy as that regarding the subject. There is immediate 
perception of a real non-ego : Why deny the truth of the 
perception ? There is no self-contradiction involved in it, 
and nothing in the result of the perception contradicts ex- 
perience. Certainly jt?roo/ is demanded from such as deny 
the reality of both members of this equation of knowl- 
edge. To be conscious of a perception is to be conscious 
of its object ; else what determines the kind of the per- 
ception ? 

2d. ^\e have a right to assume that, as Laurie says, there 
is " a harmony between the conscious and the unconscious, 
perfect equivalence between the idea and the ideatum. 
Given an external object that object becomes to my con- 
sciousness. AVhy should the process vitiate itself ? The 
onus probandi lies on him Avho supposes it does." 

Man is both mind and matter, and has relation in his 
single being to both terms of the problem, and as such is 
capable of knowing both the attributes of his spirit and 
the qualities of his body. 

3d. The old assumption that 'Hike only can be known 
by like " is not sustained by fact. 

So far as ex23erience goes the mind certainly seems to ap- 
prehend the outward in the very act of its knowing the 
inward, and it knows it as differing in nature from itself. 
So far as our knowledge goes then m revealing the condi- 
tions of knowing, it rather contradicts than supports the 
pretentious maxim quoted. 

Indeed, how much easier is it to explain a knowledge of 
similars than a knowledge of contraries, — the perception 
of an ulea than the perception of a thing ? 

4th. Other hypotheses fail to explain the idea we all 
have of the reality of the antithesis. This point can only 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 121 

be elaborated in study of the philosophies, but it may be 
remarked, in general, — that 

{a.) Pantheism denies, virtually, the existence of finite 
personality, contradicting the first essential notion of self. 
It confuses inextricably the perceiving and perceived, 
thinker and thought. It denies our primary judgments of 
difference. It has no evidence to give for the reduction of 
all to one substance or being : 

(b.) Idealism explains away admitted facts of conscious- 
ness, assumes that mind can know the ideal more readily 
than the real, gives no explanation of the difference be- 
tween our notion of body, and body, — which is funda- 
mental, and fails to show why it does not require a some- 
what (substance) as the basis of unity of its impressions, 
as well as the mind it accepts as basis for unity of mental 
phenomena. In dealing with sensations as ultimate it is 
confused between the conditions of knowledge, which they 
are, and the objects of knowledge, which they are not : 

(c.) Materialism explains nothing, is a theory impossible 
of statement without assumption of mind, is a denial, not 
an explanation, of patent facts, is therefore unscientific, 
as has been shown in all our discussion of consciousness, 
crowding into matter conce23tious wholly foreign to all we 
know of it, never deducing the mental from the physical, 
save in words, and explaining the higher forms of life, on 
its own assumptions, solely in terms of mental power : 

{(I.) Eepresentative, or Oosmothetic, Idealism would be 
impossible save for the theory that like only knows like, — 
already controverted. It solves no difficulties, for it 
asserts that there is an external world, which accounts for 
our representation, but it denies the very intuition on 
which Ave ground our belief in the existence for which we 
are accounting. It tells us nothing of the nature of this 
external world, nor can it. It may be the ^' external " 



122 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

of Idealism, — and so the hypothesis is rendered needless ; 
— or it may be a real world, — but it is then an assumption 
of a fact wholly beyond experience, — a needless inference. 
If it denies oiir actual knowledge of the external, it must, 
by the same logic destroy the ground of our knowledge of 
self. (Chiefly after Hamilton.) 

5th. The historical resume of the types of explanation 
just referred to will reveal the tendencies of these 
hypotheses as destructive of the grounds of certainty. 

6th. The recently developed notion of ^' Physical 
Realism, ^^ that the mind apprehends its own body in the 
internal effect in the nerves, but only infers other body, in 
no way solves the difficulty. It is as easy to explain 
knowledge of the external as of our own nerves, — and 
easier to show how we have a direct knowledge of it than 
to demonstrate that we can infer, through our body, the 
existence of the world beyond. 

References. 

On " like apprehending like." — cf. Hamilton, Discussions, 61. 
Bowen's Hamilton, 344 sq. Martineau, Essays, 2 : 253 sq. 

On general subject of Natural Realism. — Hamilton's Discussions, 
— (cf. Wight's ed., 32 and 173) — espec. cf. his Supplementary Discus- 
sions to Reid. Martineau, Study of Relig., 1 : 67-75. Laurie, 
Metaph., Nov., et. Vetusta. Masson, Recent British Philosophy. 
Seth, Scottish Philosophy (Kant and Reid), N. B., p. 142.— Case, 
Physical Realism. Martineau's Essays on Bain and Hamilton. 
Spencer, Psych., old ed., p. 59, but cf. new ed., 2 : 467. 

Illustrative Historical Resume. 

Descartes, 1596—1650. 

His life, and eager pursuit of truth. The four steps de- 
termined on for his intellectual life, and the ** provisory 
code of morals " which should guide him through his 
years of doubt and seeking. {Discourse of Method, Eng. 
trans, pp. 61, 65 sq.) He was 23 years old. Travelled 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 123 

nine years, to broaden mind, remove errors, &c., then to 
Holland, 1629, to write. 

Aim : Clear thought, simplest conceptions. 

Metliod : Enumerates all cooditions of problem in or- 
derly manner (D's Induction), then analyzes into simj^lest 
elements, — to most simple, which is intuited, and from this 
deduce systematically (The Cartesian Deduction), cf. Ba- 
con's Method, in Novum Organum. D's objection to B's 
appeal to experience, because sense-perception is complex. 
Also to Aristotle's Dialectic, which does not discover truth, 
but only states it logically. 

Apparent that self-deception creeps into all our think- 
ing, and so must begin with dovM, — but with the purpose 
of reaching certainty. (So Bacon, who applied this ob- 
jectively, as D. does subjectively.) 

Tlieory of Being. 

(a.) The argument for Self : Meditations, 1, 2. Cogito, 
ergo sum. 

{h.) The argument for God. Meditations 3, 5, cf. 
Appendix, Deus cogitatur, ergo Deus est. 

N. B. — How the idea of cause and effect is involved, it 
being a perfectly simple and clear notion. 

(c.) The argument for the External — Meditations, 6. 
Sources of Error in understanding and Will, in their going 
beyond their limits and so carrying us beyond the facts. 
Cannot infer that things are what they seem. Medita- 
tions, 4, Mind and Body exist,— but not self -existent sub- 
stances. Only God is that, and He is necessary to their 
relation. Meditations, 5. 

This leads to his 

Theory of Knoioing. 

D. makes no clear statement of his tlieory, but suggests 



124 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

the Divine Concourse. His extreme Dualism must ac- 
count for this. Mind and Matter absohitely separate. 

His theory is rather to be sought in his followers, — as 
developed in 

Geidincx (1625-69)— Occasionalism, — and Malehranche 
1638-1715), who denies that the soul can get the notion 
of the external from itself, since it is limited being, or 
from the external, since itself is immaterial, and cannot 
receive impressions, — and so must know all things in G-od. 

On the notion of one substance, above, — builds Spinoza 
1032-69), — One, with attributes of Thought and Exten- 
sion. Deus sive Natura. 

Refs. Descartes' Method, Meditations, and Principles (transl.), 
Edinburgh, 1867. 

Wallace, in Encyc. Brit. Mahaffy, volume in Philosophical Classics. 
Kuno Fischer, Descartes and his School. Bowen, Mod. Philos. Hists . 
of Philos. Torrey, in Modern Philosophers. 

John Loche, 1632-1704. 

Life, occasion of Essay, and purpose (Introd. to Essay). 

The first book an attack on what he regarded as 
Descartes^ theory of innate ideas, so to clear the way for 
his own. 

His meaning in '' Idea." Introd. § 8. 

Theory of Being. 

(1.) Assumption of Mind, throughout. Another matter 
whether he could properly assume it, or explain it, on his 
principles. 

cf. Bk. 2, c. 1, §§ 2, 3, 4, 20, 23, 2^. On Perception, 
2 : 9. 

The assumption that knowledge hegins with simple ideas. 

States that in all this the Mind i^piassive. 

N. B. how he brings these simple ideas into the mind, 
--e. g. Space, 2 : 13 : 2, and Time, 2 : 14 : 4. 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 125 

His *' reflection/^ the ^^ other fountain/'' through which 
experience furnishes the mind with ideas. 

^. B. that he starts with a tabula rasa. Nihil est in 
intellectu^ quod non prius fuerit in sensu. How then 
can self-consciousness arise ? How can a passive mind 
unite impressions ? Beginnings of intelligence inex- 
plicable on this theory. But assertion of reality of soul as 
explicit as in Descartes. — Bk. 4^ c. 9, § 3. 

Tlie World, 

(2.) Primary and Secondary Qualities. — 2 : 8 : 9, 10. 
Things exist, but ideas are not like them, 2 : 8 : 7, 8. 
cf. Bk. 4 : 11 : 1, 2, 3, 9. Every idea carries with it the 
supposition of the substratum in which it inheres. But 
how can it, on this theory ? N. B. the confusion of 
^''idea-'' and ^^ quality.^-' The assertion of the real, 
objective, is however, perfectly clear. 

Theory of Knoiving, 

Is there a hint of Occasionalism in 2 : 8 : 12, 13, 15, 
19 ? 

Ideas are the only objects of knowledge, but they 
represent things, and in case of simple ideas give the like- 
ness of reality. ^* The Maker '' has so arranged it. 
Secondary qualities give no likeness in the impressions 
created. But can he say more of the primary, consistent- 
ly, — if ideas are the only objects of knowledge ? 

cf. 4 : 1 : 1. 4 : 2 : 14. J^.: 3: 21. 1:2: 15. 2 : 
11 : 17. 4:4:4, 5. How can there be anything real 
but the individual ? General and universal but creations 
of mind. 

Leibnitz's (1646-1716) objection to Locke's theory. 
Pre-established Harmony. The veins in the stone. 
'^ Nisi intellectus ipse.''' His doct. of Monads against 
Spinoza. 



126 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

The French interpretation : Condillac (1715-1780). 

Befs. Encyc. Brit. : Fraser. Fraser's volume, in Philosophical 
Classics. Morris, British Thoughts and Thinkers. Foxe Bourne's 
Life. Fowler, in English Men of Letter Series. Russel's Locke, in 
Modern Philosophers. Green's Preliminary Essay to Hume's Works. 
Cousin, Mod. Philos. , vol. 2. 

The Essay. 

Dewey's Leibnitz's Human Understanding (Grigg's Philos. Classic), 
cc. 4, 7, 10. 

Bishop Berkeley, 1684-1753. 

His Hfe, education, public service, relation to America, 
&c. His writings. 

Descartes and Locke the chief philosophical influences 
in his thought, but himself a very original thinker. 

Begins his " Principles of Human Knowledge" with a 
polemic against Abstract Ideas. Eegarded them as the 
ground of the false conclusions of Locke regarding sub- 
stance, the external world, motion, &c. cf. Principles, §§ 
5, 11 sq. His notion of Abstract Ideas, Introd. §§ 24, 12. 
16, cf. 21. 

Lockers view of the unknown nature of the substance 
of our being, and his speculations as to possibility of its 
being material, leads him, B., to ask as to the meaning of 
reality, cause, externality. He would exorcise the ma- 
terialistic tendency of thought. 

Theory of Being. 

(1.) Doctrine of Ideas. 

All objects of knoivledge ideas, (1) imprinted on senses, 
(2) perceived by attending to mind^s operations, (3) formed 
by memory and imagination. § 1. 

Like nothing but ideas — § 8. cf. § 22. 

Ideas are passive in nature : " the existence of an idea 
consists in being perceived," § 2 ; — there is in them no 
causal power. AVe are led thus to infer 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 127 

(2.) The Thinhing Self, 

§§ 2, 25, 26, 27. He has affirmed the impossibility of 
conceiving anything distinct '^from sensation or the per- 
ception of \t" Then how construct even the idea of a 
thing ? A synthetizing mind is essential. But is it more 
than an assumption with B. ? 

(3.) Doctrine of tlie Exter7ial, — of Reality. 

He applies Locke's argument against Secondary Qualities 
to the Primary, as well. § 9 sqq. An idea is like nothing 
but an idea. The very notion of matter is self-contra- 
dictory, cf. § 15. 

His argument against matter — §§ 16, sq. 

Even if it were, it could never be known by us, §§, 18, 
20, cf. 22, 133, 

The esse of all things is percipi. 

His consideration of objections, §§ 40 sqq. He defends 
himself against the denial of reality, 40, — but note his 
meaning of reality, and his identification of ^'idea^' and 
^^ thing.'' §§ 33, "^37, 38, 90. 

Against the inference that a thing has then no existence 
whatever when I close my eyes to it, mark his argument 
that the existence of other minds provides for the " per- 
cipi " § 45-48. This would seem to reduce the possibility 
of the existence of things to the thought of God, § 48. 

Such statements have led many expositors to identify B. 
with those now known as Modern Idealists. This is seem- 
ingly justified, especially by such as those in First Dia- 
logue (146) and Second (160, 163). But B. never worked 
out the thought clearly, and the Principles abound in pas- 
sages denying the external, in every sense. Green declares 
the earlier idealism of the Common Place Book *^ a cruder 
form of Hume's," aud that when he wrote the Principles 
he had seen the need, if he would save spirit, of a ''thing" 
which was more than " idea," — whose essence was perci- 



128 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

pere. In Siris he is more constructive. Law and System 
in nature must be caused, and manifestations of *^ eternally 
active universal mind.'^ cf. Siris, §§ 306, 307, 312, 311, 
317. The word '^idea'^ now gets a Platonic meaning, 
and **' phenomenon " takes its place. See Fraser's Essay. 

Bearing of Collier's contemporary view, — Hume's inter- 
pretation, &c. 

(4.) Existence of God, and other Spirits. 

§§ 135-140, U6 sq. (God). 

(His idea of Creation. Letter to Percival. Eraser's 
Life, p. 73.) 

The view of Law and Cause to which his principles led 
him. Only ideas in succession- Arbitrariness of ^' law," 
in the Principles, §§ 106-108. cf. 58. 

Theory of Knoivledge. 

§§28, 29, 30. 

All originally from the divine mind, causing ideas in 
me. § 72. 

N. B. how knowledge reduces to two heads, spirits and 
ideas § 86, — and how he adds ^' relations," § 89. How 
can he, on his empirical basis ? How, on this theory of a 
succession of ideas, can he ever reach the fundamental 
categories of thought ? 

The relation of ideas, with him, is not necessary, but a 
de facto sequence, wherein one is the arbitrary, but un- 
failing sign of the other's coming. 

His aim religious. — Arguments against Skepticism. 

Difference from Fichte's Idealism (His ideas modifica- 
tions of his own mind). 

Hume, Eeid, Kant, in middle life when B. died. All 
unknown to him by name, even. 

Refs. 

Works : Principles, Dialogues, Siris. — Fraser's Life, in Philos. 
Classics. Essay, &c., in ed. of B.'s Works (cf. p. 366. note), on 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 129 

Philosophy of B. . Adamson, Encyc. Brit. — Morris, British Thoughts 
and Thinkers. 

On Arthur Collier, lutrod. to Clavis, Fraser's ed. of Berkeley I, 
app. B. Hamilton's Discussions (Essay). 

David Hume, 1711-1776. 

In Locke and Berkeley, have found Experience the 
source of knoTv^ledge^ Ideas the sole material of knowledge, 
and the External unknown, or unreal. Descartes had so 
sundered his dual realities as to render a theory of knowl- 
edge almost impossible, and Locke had built on a like po- 
sition, and Berkeley had been led to destroy one element of 
the duality in his effort to solve the problem of knowledge. 

On that basis Hume builds. His life. Early age at 
which he published the Treatise. The Inquiry much later. 
His reasons for preferring the shorter and later work. 
Eeferences here to it. But for complete study of Hume^s 
philosophy the Treatise essential. Its second part, dealing 
with Space and Time, omitted in Inquirij. 

All perceptions divide into Impressions and Ideas, dis- 
tinguished by their degrees of vivacity. All ideas are 
copies of impressions : as, e. g. even our idea of God, 
formed from reflection on our own powers. Without ca- 
pacity for a sensation of a given sort the idea also would be 
entirely wanting — § 2. 

All objects of human reason divide into Relations of 
Ideas, mere operations of thought, and Matters of Fact, 
characterized by fact that the contrary is as conceivable as 
the affirmation, — e. g. that the sun Avill rise to-morrow. 
Evidence of these rests on Sense and Memory — § 4. 

Our reasonings on matters of fact seem to rest on rela- 
tion of cause and effect. How have we reached this funda- 
mental idea ? 

By experience, of course, — as we see in investigating any 
unknown thing, and finding its cause, or in our gradual 



130 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

acquaintance with the cause of any phenomena. [Note 
the confusion common in em.piricists, between causation 
and uniformity, and between the principle of causality 
and the knowledge of particular causes.] § 4. 

But how do we gain the idea from experience ? By 
Reason ? How ? Course of nature may change. Its 
powers secret. § 4. pt. 2. (London ed. 1768, p. 47-8). 
By Experience ? How can the future be touched by a 
past experience ? § 4, pt. 2. early in §. 

Skeptical Solution of these Douhts. 

All at first known is casual connection, then by Custom, 
a sort of instinct '' which no reasoning or process of 
thought and understanding is able either to produce or to 
prevent,''^ we connect them in thought, till the idea of 
customary connection grows up. § 5. "Some object, 
present to memory or senses, and a customary conjunction 
between that and any other object." (p. 58.) 

How then distinguish between Belief and Fancy ? Ob- 
jects usually conjoined with given object intensify idea, 
and render it more " real." This Belief : less is Fancy. 
§ 5, pt. 2. 

In § 3 ha-s pointed out that Eesemblance, Contiguity, 
and Causation, are the only bonds which unite our thoughts 
together. Probability of recurrence of events thus de- 
pends on usual connection. § 5, pt. 2. cf . § 6. 

All knowledge would be limited to sense and memory but 
for this wonderful Custom whereby an object excites the 
ideas of other objects usually conjoined with it. § 5, pt. 
2, near end. 

Aware that "customary conjunction " does not satisfy our 
idea of necessary connection, and power, Hume proceeds 
in § 7 to investigate origin of these notions. No ex- 
perience of particular cause and effect can give these. 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 131 

See one ball strike another : see moYement ; but do not 
see connection. No relation impressed. 

TI16 control exerted by will cannot yield the notion. 
Know nothing of mysterious connection of will and 
muscle. Experience only shows one event following 
another. 

Cannot fall back on Supreme Being, the idea of whom 
comes from reflection on our own faculties. 

The idea is nothing but a transmuting of customary 
connection, cf. Treatise, III. § 14. We never have any 
idea of power. § 7, pt. 2. A cause '^^ is an object, followed 
by another, and where all the objects similar to the first, 
are followed by objects similar to the second, or in other 
words, where if the first object had not been the second 
had never existed.''^ 

Hume has thus destroyed all real connection of im- 
pressions and things. In § 12, pt. 1, he affirms that Berke- 
ley is right in applying Lockers argument as to Secondary 
qualities to Primary. '' External existence has no 
philosophical justification.^^ 

But personal existence has as little. In this succession 
of ideas, results of impressions, with no inherent principle 
of connection, what becomes of Personal Identity ? 
Hume had no solution. He finds no notion of mind as 
distinct from particular perceptions, and finds no real 
connection among these distinct existencies. He pleads 
the privilege of a skeptic. Treatise, Ajjpendio:. cf. pt. 4, 
§ 6, Personal Identity. 

Thus Hume destroys philosophical belief in Mind and 
Matter. All is flux, — but luhat flows ? 

The system could not be started, nor stated, but for an 
assumption of a something impressing us, and of ideas 
which spontaneously associate themselves. His '^ resem- 
blance '^ is impossible without a permanent factor. His 



132 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

use of '' mind," '' object," '^ relation/" " memory," &c., 
enables him to start, — but these mean nothing, on his 
theory. His value is in his remorseless reduction of a 
simple associationalism. N. B. especially, however, in 
this connection, — how Descartes" extreme dualism, with 
Locke's and Berkeley's additions, — have opened the way 
to Mhilism. 

Refs. 

Adamson, Encyc. Brit. Knight, (Philos. Classics). Huxley's 
Hume. Leslie Stephen, Hist Eng. Thought, &c., in 18th Cen. Green's 
Essays, in ed. of Hume. 

The Treatise and Inquiry. — cf. Case, Physical Realism, 260 sq, 
Morris, British Thoughts and Thinkers. 

Thomas Reid, 1710-1796. 

Published ^^ Inquiry ^^^ etc., 1764; Intellectual Powers, 
1785, and Active Powers, 1788. 

As a follower of Berkeley was speculating in 1739 when 
he was shaken in his quiet by Hume's Treatise, cf. Letter 
to Hume (Works, p. 91), Hume's letter (pp. 7-8). Stew- 
art was Reid's pupil and biographer. 

The scientific attitude of Reid. References to Bacon, 
and familiarity with the work of Newton and his fol- 
lowers. 

His Method in the '' hiquiry." 

Attitude toward Philosophy, from Descartes to Hume, 
and apprehension of the logical development. (Works, 99, 
no, 127.) 

Locke, Berkeley, Hume, had held to(l) Passivity of Mind, 
(2) Origin of Knowledge through Sense, (3) Ideas as ob- 
jects of knowledge. 

Reid attacks all these points. 

(1.) He shows that in all simplest mental experience. 
Mind is seen to be active, c. 2, § 10. He establishes this 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 133 

by a careful scientific examination of the primitive ps3"chi- 
cal conditions, as in Smell. 

(2.) Taking up sense by sense lie shows that the unit of 
knowledge is always a judgment. There is no such thing 
in our observed mental life, as unrelated imjpressions and 
ideas. We reach sensations, indeed, only by analysis, c. 
2, § 4. c. 5, § 6. Indeed they are not apprehended at all, 
but are simply conditions of perception, '^ signs '^ which 
introduce us to knowledge of objects, c. 2, § 7. c. 5, § 2. 
c. 6, § 20. Intel. Poivers, cc. 5 and 16. Thus he dis- 
tinguishes between perception and sensation, cf. Con- 
clusion, p. 208. Both these conclusions, as to the unit of 
knowledge, and as to sensation, are directly against the 
older philosophy^ and meet the tendencies that produced 
Hume. We do not perceive sensations at all : they are 
but ^^ signs " revealing reality to us. 

This judgment involves subject and object and implies 
existence, substance, cause and effect. " The first having 
of a sensation is at the same time the knowledge of it as 
objective, and the knowledge of it as mine.'" cf. Con- 
clusion, p. 209. 

(3.) If ideas are the object of knowledge, he declares 
we must go with Berkeley, c. 5, § 3, 4, 6. 7. The com- 
mon-sense view suggests no such unnatural view. c. 
6, § 5, 6, 20, InteUec. Poio, c. 14. The belief is justified 
as coming from nature, and as shown true in the analysis 
of our knowledge in perception. Distrust of it throws us 
back into the current which flows to Hume. The veracity 
of consciousness is pledged to this view. The other is 
contrary to the opinion of mankind, when instructed in 
philosophy, and itself involves assumption as to the exist- 
ence of ideas that are unsupported, and really explains no 
difficulties as to the mind^s operation in knowledge. 

Belief is explained by instinct, not reason, c. G, § 24. 



134 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

Reid a Natural Realist, cf. Hamilton's Note, p, 819 sq, 
to R.'s Works. 

Refs. Reid's Works, Hamilton's ed. Stewart's Biog. is given as 
introd. to it. Seth : Scottish Philosophy, and art. in Encyc. Brit. 
McCosh, Hist. Scot. PhUos. Sneath's Reid, in Modern Philosophers. 

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). 

No purpose to examine the whole Kantian philosophy, 
even in outline, — but only to note the bearing of its 
development on the special subject in hand. 

K. wished to see whether Hume's problem might be 
made general, whether ^' the connection of cause and effect 
is the only one through which the understanding a priori 
thinks to itself connection among things." (K.) Stirling's 
transl. Introd. to Critique, 130. 

Despite Hume the idea of necessary connection persists, 
and so do other " universals," as axioms of mathematics 
and physics. Experience has no explanation of these. 
Must deny that we have such truths, or deny that experi- 
ence is their source. 

Whence the synthesis (in a synthetic, in distinction 
from an analytic, judgment.) ? Are synthetic judgments 
a priori possible ? So the point of view is reversed from 
that of Hume, and the solution is attempted from an 
examination of the very content of the judgment. The 
Critique is an attempt to discover all the principles which 
the miyid furnishes to the materials of sense. Is there 
something beyond sensible experience, — on which, indeed, 
it depends ? 

(So called ^^ Copernicus.") — cf. Introd. to Crit. (Stir- 
ling, 130. Miiller, , and Introd. at length.) 

cf. Mahaffy and Bernard, 27. 

K. distinguishes sharply between '* Sense " and '* Under- 
standing," ^^ two stems of human cognition," '' by the 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 135 

former of which objects are given to us, and by the latter 
thought/^ (Close of Introduction.) 

That is, " Sense affords us perceptions, which being 
thought by Understanding, -there result notions.''^ 

Now in a perception there is something corresponding 
to the mere feeling, viz : matter, — and something which 
so acts that the units of impression are peculiarly disposed 
in relation to one another, — viz : form. This order in 
the units of impression cannot be sensation, but must be 
from the mind, a priori, and so can be considered apart 
from sensation (^^sthetic, 1st part). When I examine 
the perception, and withdraw from it all that is contin- 
gent, empirical, I find left, as pure forms contributed a 
priori. Space and Time. The Transcendental Esthetic 
is the examination of these. 

He finds them to be subjective conditions under which 
we perceive things (Miiller's transl., pp. 21 and 29). 

Observe, as bearing already on our problem, that Kant 
states, in General Observations on Transc. ^Esth. that we 
know only the representations of phenomena, never things 
in themselves. We know our manner of perceiving them. 
'^ Space and time are pure forms of our intuition, while 
sensation forms its matter. ^^ To Kant Eeid's simpler and 
more '' natural " conception seemed absurd. 

But perception alone, which is through sense, gives us not 
IcnoiDledfje, thought, but only crude sense-perceptions. 

There is a ^' where '' and a '^ when," — but no definite 
^' what." '^Perceptions without notions are blind," and 
notions are of the Understanding. For example, one sees 
a solid something, which becomes a stone, a crystal, a 
diamond, — passing from crude to perfect knowledge. 
Space and Time are ^^ pure forms," — but of Sense, not 
Understanding, which thinhs. This further synthetic 
process cannot belong to Sense, which is passive. It must 



136 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

then be due to Understanding. We shall discover all 
possible forms of synthesis, then, if we can form a com- 
plete list of the notions of the Understanding. 

(So Transc. Logic, — divisible into Tr. Analytic and Tr. 
Dialectic.) 

This K. does on the basis of older Logical Methods, 
classifying judgments, — and so finds his list of the 
Categories^ which Stirling says are '' the various affections 
of the logical judgment regarded as functions of unity and 
conceived to be synthetically applied in reduction of . . . 
sensuous impressions.^' (p. 69.) Miiller's transl., p. 62. 
Stirling, 193. 

They are the pure forms of L^nderstanding under which 
things are thought, and, as reached by a careful and 
exhaustive process of analysis, they add to a priori and 
universal forms of Sense, already obtained, the pure 
notions of the Understanding. And the Categories 
''presuppose conjunction,^' — a unity found only in the 
thinking subject (Stirling's transl., 213 sq.), and itself the 
condition of all or any unity. 

Kant has thus shown that all experience or knowledge 
depends on the combination of a perception with a jDrin- 
ciple of the understanding ; that is, I must thmJc it. This 
removes him far from Hume's view. But he viewed these 
categories as pure forms of thought, and to be applied to 
objects he asserted that, since there is something " hetero- 
geneous " in the idea, we must find a '' third thing homo- 
geneous on one side with the capacity, and on the other 
with the phenomenon, to render the application of the 
former to the latter possible." Morris declares that K. 
has already shown that the action of the understanding 
supplies the essential connection, and so this is needless 
confusion and difficulty. Stirling says we have here the 
parts of the machine put together for work. The mean- 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 137 

ing seems to be, in this So-called Schematism of the Under- 
standing, that Conception and Perception are, by them- 
selves, simply possible conceptions, or mere manifold, — and 
in tills connection the perception is idealized, and the con- 
ception realized, and so they form a judgment of expe- 
rience (so Caird, vol. 1, 433, c. 457 sq). Caird thinks it 
necessitated by Kant^s view of Self-conscioiisness as not in 
itself containing a relation to the external, — to what is 
presented in time. 

Kant finds this homogeneous element in timef {Critique, 
Miiller, 122). His dealing with the simplest of the 
categories as schemata may illustrate his method and 
purpose. The Category Quantity, e. g. stands over against 
a manifold, or complex. These related in time, are 
successive units in perception, magnitudes, — and these 
subsumed by the Category named give in their succession 
the conception, or schema, of Number, which corresponds 
to the Category. — ^^ The schema is only the phenomenon, 
or the sensuous notion, of an object, in agreement with 
the category.^^ (Stirling's transl., 255.) 

Can Kant, applying here his Category of Relation, 
through time, — find a satisfactory explanation of ccnise and 
effect? That alone concerns us here. AYhat is time but 
sequence ? cf. Stirling, transl., 294. Succession does not 
imply necessary relation. Can that connection be possibly 
shown to be a priori, if facts are empirical and contingent, 
as Kant thinks ? — Kant's sacrifice of the objective relations 
and truth leads him to fail here. Note his illustrations of 
the house and ship in the stream and his failure to show 
why he applies the Category of Quantity in one case and 
Relation in the other. Why, save for objective reasons ? 
And he seems to get no more than succession (Transl. of 
Stirling, 297 sq. and S.'s Commentary, 501. Contra. 
Mahafl'y, p. 184. Caird I, 5G6 S(i.). Kant has said, p. 



138 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

278, that there is not a hint of real cause in understanding 
a priori. To have the category convert the following into 
following from, is beyond logic or fact. cf. Stirling's 
summary, pp. 497-498. K.^s departure from the simple 
principles advocated by Keid, leads to this result. From 
direct knowledge of self and the world, from clear objective 
proof of the necessary relations of things, he alike shuts 
us out. 

It is not our problem here to follow out the develop- 
ment of his thought in the Dialectic. We are concerned 
only with the content of the Percept, as here treated. 

Seth suggests that if we cannot weave this universe of 
sense into any form we please, then matter must have laws 
of its own, and it is for us to decipher them. And why 
bring out a causal rather than a reciprocal relation ? Is 
there not something in the facts to determine ? Then 
what use of the categories ? Then the mind's function is 
to know things as they are. (p. 142.) 

Martineau reminds us that the process of perception is 
not the descent of synthesis upon multiplicity, but a 
resolution of singleness into analysis, (p. QQ.) K. asserts 
his belief in things : why not trust his intuition farther ? 
(70-73.) 

Refs. 

Miiller's Translation. Stirling's Text-Book to Kant. Mahaffy and 
Bernard : Critique Explained and Defended. Caird, The Critical 
Philos. of Kant. Stirling, Mind, 1884, 1885,—' ' Did K. ans. Hume ? " 
cf. Case, Phys. Ptealism, 323. Uberweg's Summary of the Critique 
in Case's Appendix. Wallace, — Kant (in Philosophical Classics). 
Morris, The Critique, &c., in Grigg's Series, Watson's Selections from 
Kant. 

The Feelings. 

A scientific study of the Feelings is one of the chief 
difficulties of Psychology. They are so evanescent that it 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 139 

is difficult to study them as present facts^ and their re- 
production depends, in a large degree, on the renewal of 
experiences, sensational, cognitive and volitional, with 
which they are associated. To separate this vague ele- 
ment from the compound experience is not easy, and is 
often impossible. 

We may hope, however, to discover the nature of feel- 
ing, and to gain some understanding of its relations to the 
physiological and psychological sides of our being, and in a 
survey of the various classifications attempted we may 
trace some of its multiform expressions. 

I. The ]N'ature of Feeling. 

(a.) Feeling is an ultimate mode of consciousness. As 
volition cannot be traced to, or derived from, the other 
elements of psychic life, as cognition cannot be reduced to 
more simple terms, so feeling is distinguished from all 
sensation which has an objective reference, as an indecom- 
posable mental condition, known, as Ladd says, only as it 
is felt. 

It is experienced with sensation, but not as sensation in 
its positive aspect, it accompanies all the interactions of 
thought, but is not the product of thought, it is felt in 
all experiences of consciousness, sensuous, intellectual, 
agsthetic, spiritual, but is as original as knowing itself. 

It is distinguished by its entirely subjective reference. 
Knowledge refers to objects. Will has an altogether ob- 
jective reference, but Feeling pertains to the subject, and 
is a form of consciousness which is its own end, save as it 
indirectly incites the intellect and will. Baldwin's defini- 
tion may be quoted here : " feeling is the subjective side 
of any modification whatever of consciousness, — the sim- 
ple awareness of tlie unreflecting consciousness. '' (p. 85.) 

Feelings are characterized by intensity, and by pleasure 
or pain (called ^'tone,'" by most authors), and by a more 



140 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

specific quality due in each case to the physical or mental 
activity with which the feeling is related (commonly called 
'^ content/') The ebb and flow of our vital functions im- 
presses on them also a quality of periodicity. It may even 
be that in themselves, by virtue of their own nature, they 
are thus rhythmic, — a quality marking so much of our 
psychical life, as it does the operation of physical forces. 

Theories are advanced, however, and sustained with 
great skill, which derive feeling from physiological condi- 
tions, on the one hand, and from psychological relations, 
on the other. 

Physiological theories hold, in general, that the pleasant 
is that which advantages the organism, and the painful 
that which is injurious to it. Feeling is thus a reaction 
of the nervous system perceived. The extreme statement 
of the theory is made by James : '^ the bodily changes fol- 
low directly the perception of the exciting fact, and our 
feeling of the same changes as they occur is the emotion." 
That is, " we feel sorry because we cry." 

Against every such theory it may be urged that the 
pleasant does not always advantage the organism, nor the 
painful evidence injury to it. The law is stated too broad- 
ly, but even so it would not explain the higher feelings. 

James^ statement seems a direct reversal of common ex- 
perience. First we have perception of a fact, then bodily 
changes resulting, and then consciousness of these, name- 
ly, feeling. It is difficult to criticize a statement which 
seems to completely antagonize experience, and which re- 
duces feeling to a mere j^erception of physiological func- 
tion. Even thus the Tcnotvhdge of the experience becomes 
the sphere of feeling. Further, this theory would involve 
the treatment of feeling as a secondary experience, depen- 
dent on sensation. The tendency of research seems to be 
to show that sensations may exist apart from feeling. 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 141 

and feeling independently of sensation, (cf. Hoffding, 
223-4). 

See various phases of physiological theory, in Ribot, p. 
290. 

Psychological theories of the origin of feeling make the 
experience the result of the relations of ideas. The mutual 
agreement or disagreement of ideas occasions agreeable or 
disagreeable feeling. We feel when we are conscious of 
the increase or decrease of our psychical life. This view 
confines to the realm of sensations all that is not directly 
due to ideas. 

Against this theory stands all evidence that feeling is 
ultimate, unanalyzable and precedent to cognition. More- 
over, feeling accompanies the simplest sensation, as has 
been noted, and it is arbitrary to differentiate this from 
that experienced where there are relations of ideas. Fur- 
ther, the treatment of ideas by this Herbartian school, as if 
they are real, substantial things, has already been seen to 
be fanciful and mythological. (Ladd. Ribot. cf . Hoffding 
222). (cf. Lindner, Lehrbuch, 151). 

Sully, 449 sq. Dewey, 246 sq. Murray, 303 sq. Baldwin, Feelings, 
84 sq. Ladd, 498-504. Holding, 221 sq. James, 873 sq. (small ed). 
Hill, 221-7. Ribot, 233 and 290. Porter, Moral Sci. 22 sq. Lindner, 
Lehrbuch, 150 sq. Spencer 1, 163 sq. 

On rhythm of processes, Dewey, 185 sq. Baldwin, Feelings, 265. 
Ladd, 508. 

Account of theories, Wiindt, 1 : 490 sq. 

{!).) Note on the Physical Basis of Feeling. 
Feeling is a fact of consciousness, and the relation of consciousness 
and the physical life have been already discussed, in connection with 
sensation. The parallelism of the two forms of life has been indi- 
cated, and their entire independence insisted upon. It will be useful for 
^ the student to read the first two chapters of Baldwin's Feeling and 

Will, and Ladd's few pages, 510-512. Ladd intimates (506) his belief 
that laws may be stated 'partially covering relations existing between 
^ the nervous system and feeling, but that there is no likehhood of dis- 



142 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

covering one law to cover the facts, where heredity, idiosyncracies, 
association, and attention are so patent. 

There are reasons for doubting the complete identity of nervous ap- 
paratus for feeling and sensation, and the tendency is to affirm a 
partially separate mechanism of end-organs, nerve-tracts, and central 
areas, cf. Ladd, in loc. 

(c.) Note on the Expression of Feeling. 

Allied to the physiological basis of feehng is the physiological ex- 
pression of it. The general expressions of pleasure and pain are 
universally the same, and so of the particular emotions of anger and 
reverence, — and these may serve us for illustrations. Not only is 
it true that the presence of these feelings finds a particular expression, 
but their expression seems to have a reactionary power in the cultiva- 
tion of the feeling. 

The discussion of this subject leads at once into the realm of the 
relationship of mind and body. Much light has been thrown on it by 
recent discussions, but the satisfactory theory, explaining all the facts, 
has hardly yet been formulated. The student wiU find full treatment 
of the subject in Darwin, Expression of the the Emotions in Man and 
Animals, and Wundt, Physiol. Psych, vol. 2 : 418-428. Sully gives a 
good summary of the discussion. 453-456, — where other references 
are also given ; — Hill, pp. 251-3, summarizes Darwin's Laws ; — see 
also Murray, 324-7, McCosh, Emotions, 88 sqq ; cf. Morgan's Animal 
Life and Intelligence, c. 10. Baldicin, Feeling, &c., 249-252. 

II. Nature of Pleasure and Pain. 

Among the characteristics of Feelings already mentioned, 
their pleasurable or painful quality is peculiar. Is it de- 
pendent on the objects exciting feeling ? Oris it depend- 
ent entirely on subjective conditions ? Is pleasure the 
mere absence of pain ? Or is it a positive condition, and 
dependent on its own peculiar states of the organism ? 

Plato thought pleasure a mere negative affair, the resto- 
ration from an abnormal to a normal condition. Aristotle's 
theory, which has swayed thought ever since, was directed 
against this Platonic hypothesis, and asserted pleasure to 
be a direct affection of the soul, the accompaniment of 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 143 

perfect energy. Hamilton, who brought Aristotle^s doc- 
trine back into its present prominence, argues that Plato 
has stated a half-truth, and one not irreconcilable with 
Aristotle^s view. 

The meaning of Aristotle may be put thus : Human 
faculties are limited, — they ^^ cannot energize continually.^" 
There are limits to our energies, — an absolute and an ordi- 
nary, or natural, — and to this latter every state tends 
spontaneously to reach. Extraordinary effort may enable 
us to surpass it. It is the limit, however, of normal well- 
being, — of health. If we habitually fail to reach it, 
atrophy of the organ, or, to extend the figure, of the 
mental condition, results : if we habitually urge ourselves 
to pass the limit, hypertrophy results. Pleasure is the 
consciousness resulting from a stimulation of our powers 
to a normal limit ; pain results from overstrain, or from 
restraint within the normal limit. 

This statement seems to meet the common experiences 
of pleasure and pain, and also to throw light on the com- 
mon experience of distaste for that which has been pleas- 
ant, and love for that which has been painful. The change 
of the organism or mental conditions, and not intrinsic 
quality, is the explanation of the fact. This is admirably 
illustrated in Dr. Murray^s interesting chapter on this sub- 
ject, not only as regards sensuous pleasure and pain, but 
in relation to the highest and lowest emotions of the soul. 

The question as to a third condition, — neutral, indif- 
ferent, — in feelings, has been answered affirmatively by 
Bain, — but the larger weight of authority is against him. 
(of. Sully, Ladd, Hamilton, Baldwin). 

Aristotle, Nich Eih Bk. 10. cc. 1^3 (adv. Plato), 4, 5, 7. 8. Plato, 
Phaedo (beginning;, Philebus. Republic, Bk.9. 
Hamilton, Lect. 42. Historical acc't, Lect., 43. 
Murray, 304 sq. Baldwin, Feelings, — cc. 5 and 11 (espec. 127 and 



144 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

274 (on Bain's ''indifference," 275-6). Ladd, 500-1, 514 (on Bain, 
509). Mill, Exam, of Hamilton, c. 25. Spencer, J, 272 sq. Data, 
c. 10. Grant Allen, Physiol. Esthetics, c. 2. Bain, pp. 11-16. 
Sully, 457 sq. Dallas, Gay Science, cc. 10 sq. 

III. The Classification of Feelings. 

The qualities of feeling already referred to explain the 
difficulty of forming a really helpful classification of the 
varieties of emotion. The method most in vogue has been 
the descriptive^ and has consisted of an enumeration of 
emotions and an effort to combine, under several general 
heads, those resembling one another more or less. A good 
example is seen in Hartley's six classes of Intellectual 
Pleasures and Pains. 1, of imagination ; 2, of ambition ; 
3, of self-interest ; 4, of sympathy ; 5, of theopathy ; 6, of 
moral sense. A glance shows how artificial is this, how 
unscientific, and how lacking in real help to the student. " 

The same may be said of Thomas Brown^s attempt to 
arrange them in temporal order, as Immediate, Retrospec- 
tive, Prospective. But if this descriptive method, not un- 
like the old modes of systematic Botany, gives way to a 
more scientific effort, like the mode of Biology, to classify 
on the basis of a common inherent principle, the difficulty 
of finding such a principle that yields a true classification 
is still as great as ever. 

If we try to proceed on a basis of ascertained psycholog- 
ical facts, and classify according to sense, intellect, etc., 
we still fiud that feelings cross one another, intermingle, 
and are inextricably blended. Beauty may incite feelings 
of an intellectual and aesthetic nature, and also of a sensu- 
ous, and so with other ^^ sentiments,"" which cannot be 
always distinguished from ^^sensations'" in this mode of 
classification. 

Pleasure and pain, again, are made a basis, but the same 
feeling may be at one time pleasurable, at another painful. 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 145 

Again, many divide into egoistic and social or altruistic 
feelings, but nothing whatever is thus told us of the na- 
ture of the feeling, save that it is pleasant or painful to 
the self or others — and, indeed, even this artificial relation 
cannot be clearly worked out. It is like classifying flowers 
by their smell. 

The student should read several of the leading classifi- 
cations referred to in the references, and should criticize 
them in detail, in light of what has been said. Follow up 
Spencer's, e. g., and note Sully's just criticism on it. Note 
the basal principle of Martin eau's classification. Note 
McCosh's very broad, too broad, division (observe Brown's 
influence). Observe the Herbartian principles (in Ladd, 
Nahwalsky, and in Bain's Appendix). Study carefully the 
table on page 243 of Baldwin's Feeling and Will. Is there 
not the same crossing and intermingling here ? Notice 
Horwicz (in Ladd), and Ladd's criticism. 

Observe how in all attempts it is found necessary to 
base the classification on relations to other kinds of feel- 
ing. Feeling is not sensation, e. g. but it must be classi- 
fied by its relations to sensations, — and so of intellectual, 
aesthetic, and moral, emotions. Observe, too, the im- 
probability of forming a classification which will be accu- 
rate and final, since the feelings accompanying one of 
these activities just referred to are likely to find renewed 
expression in connection with another. 

Two conclusions of a constructive nature are suggested. 

I. The study of many of these classifications shows us 
that the chief discernible outlines of these complex and 
intertwined experiences follow the sensuous and intellect- 
ual natures, the latter term here covering the aesthetic 
and moral. Many feelings are confined strictly to the 
former sphere, as hunger and thirst, — many to the latter, 
as the love of truth, reverence. But a great number of 



146 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

our emotive experiences partake of both, — as do all our de- 
sires and affections. These three broad, general classes, 
then, may serve us as vague outlines under which we may 
associate our various experiences. 

II. A study of classifications inclines to the belief that 
little can be done in scientific strictness, in bringing un- 
der these various heads, in settled classes, the various or- 
ders of desires and affections. The most that we can hope 
to do is to find a broad principle under which, in a merely 
general way, we can arrange our experiences, with refer- 
ence to their relation, now to the sensuous, noAv to the 
ideational side of life, never forgetting that life is so com- 
plex that its spontaneous expressions are certain to partake 
of the characteristics of the organism, in all its various 
functions, through which it manifests itself. 

Martineau, Vol. 2. Pt. II. Bk. 1. cc. 5-7. (Plato and Aristotle, 130-2) 
Porter, 44. Bain, Emotions, appendix Murray, 327 sq. Sully, 479 
sq. Calderwood, 153-160. Hill, 225 sq. Hamilton, Lects. 45, 46 
(Murray's ed. 200 sq). Spencer, 2 : 514. Ladd, 505 sq. Wundt, 
1 : 274. McCosh, Emotions. Hoffding 233 sq. Baldwin, in gener- 
al, and table, 243. James, 375 (small ed). c. 25 (large). Lotze, Out- 
lines, 73 sq. Microcosmus, 1 : 240. Linder, 156. Bowne, 191. 

IV. Influence of Feeling in Mental Life. 

Eeference was made in the discussion of association to 
the possibly vast influence of Feeling in explaining the 
wonderful combinations of our ideas. Feelings themselves, 
Hoffding points out, are not directly associable, so far as 
we know, but are associated through accompanying cogni- 
tions. Thought, he shows us, is vastly swifter and more 
versatile, but that which roots itself in feeling is longer re- 
tained. Feeling is harder to uproot, is more conservative, 
and is unchanged, often, when logical processes have 
reached the speculative powers. New feelings must be 
aroused and cherished in association with the new ideas. 



. SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 147 

and only gradually will these overbalance, and possibly de- 
stroy, the older feelings which were associated with the 
abandoned opinions. Thus, with all its shiftings and 
rapid transmutations, it seems to be the most conservative 
element in human nature. 

Its great influence over thinking processes needs only a 
reference here. The quickened intellectual process where 
music has stirred the feelings may serve as an illustration. 
Intense feeling, however, may as readily absorb the pow- 
ers of the soul so as to make thought impossible, or as to 
distort the judgment. But it may quicken the mental 
vision, and clothe its ideals in actual form, and so stimu- 
late to broader thought and to action. In either aspect it 
is of vast consequence to the psychical life. 

Hdffding, 240-2, 298 sq. 

The Will. 

A third ultimate expression of the mental life is the 
Will. It is clearly distinguishable from the Cognitions, 
on the one side, and from the Feelings on the other. 
Unlike the latter its reference is objective, but unlike the 
former the objectivity is one of purpose and action. The 
Will may give expression thus to either the subjective im- 
pulses of feeling, or it may realize the objective references 
of our thinking, — and in either case it is a distinct addi- 
tion, of a new kind, to the psychical experience. 

I hear, for example, of a case of great distress in my 
neighborhood. The message pictures to me a wretched 
poverty, physical and mental suffering, pain and want, 
suffering parents and helpless children. My sympathies 
are awakened : I think of all that is implied in these con- 
ditions, and reflect on my power and duty to alleviate the 
distress. My intellectual powers picture the scene and 
suggest a remedy : my feelings intensify my convictions of 



148 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

the need and duty through the awakening of sympathy. 
All this may take place without an act of will. I may go 
farther and reflect on my duty, the inconveniences involved, 
the good to be done, — or I may justly consider whether the 
case is one to which my ministry will be a real help. I am 
impelled to act, but am also restrained from action. Not 
until one or the other end becomes the definite point con- 
templated is there an exercise of will. I go, — or I restrain 
my impulses and say *^ I will not go." 

Now all the elements of a deliherate act of will are here 
illustrated. A large part of our voluntary action, how- 
ever, is not so deliberate. Impulses act quickly, thoughts 
move with lightning speed, there is no refiection, appa- 
rently, and the deed is done. But there, too, however 
rapid the process, the determining element is a contem- 
plated end, — and the act differs from the deliberate deed 
not in the point of luilling but in the antecedents of will. 
The one distinctive feature of Will is that, whatever its 
antecedents, it acts in view of a purpose, of an end pre- 
sented, and with a view to its realization. Will is the de- 
termination of the self in view of an end. In discussing 
it we need therefore to examine the antecedents to its 
action, its influence on the other faculties, and its inde- 
pendence, or freedom. 

{a.) Antecedents to Voluntary Action. 

By their very nature impulses tend to activity, — to real- 
ize themselves. We see this in the reflex actions of the 
body, or in the involuntary acts whereby it adjusts itself, 
without apparent consciousness, to changed conditions. 
Strong feeling produces muscular excitement, and intense 
thought always tends to expression. So in the nature of 
our psychic life we find the preparation for the peculiar 
quality of volition. 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 149 

Chief among these impulses of our nature toward action, 
is desire, often confounded with it, but essentially unlike 
it. The word expresses a natural craving, — and, like will, 
involves the thought of an end. It is commonly treated 
as if the end were the pleasure or pain involved in the ac- 
tion, — but in truth desire expresses a want which clamors 
to be satisfied, not a longing for the pleasant, nor an aver- 
sion to the painful. Hunger and thirst may be mentioned 
as illustrations of this truth. But, while desire thus in- 
volves an end contemplated, a feeling of want and an 
incipient activity, it falls short of Will in that these are 
wholly spontaneous, and cannot realize themselves at all, 
save as we decree the satisfaction of the desire, and the 
action which shall bring the satisfaction. Desire craves : 
Will directs. Desire has relation to an end : Will directs 
the affections and judgments toward that end, or away 
from it. 

As bearing on the desires in their higher, as well as their 
lower, range, we must include all the spontaneities of our 
natures, our impulses, our actions, as resulting in settled 
habitudes of thought and deed. Our reflections, our de- 
liberately formed purposes, our previous volitions in the 
light of these, — all that has acted on us and all, in turn, 
that we have thought and done, — these gradually combine 
in what we call character, — the stamp on a man which de- 
clares what he is. N"ow this character influences and di- 
rects the spontaneous desires, in large part, and gives their 
peculiarities to the deliberate desires, and all these, spon- 
taneous and reflective, become rnoHves influencing man to 
action. That is, a motive is an expression of something 
desirable to a man, — of something in his nature to which 
a given end appeals. It is not an action, but an influence 
to action ; — not an influence from without, but one which 
finds its source of power in the man himself. Motives 



150 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

thence have very various influences over us according to 
our physical, intellectual, or emotional, conditions at dif- 
ferent times. 

Motives, then, are the influences which may be said to 
cover all antecedents to the act of willing. They are not 
that act, nor does any strongest motive dictate the act. 
The man considers all motives, — or is moved by them, — 
and at the point where he no longer hesitates among 
them, — where he decides what his course of action shall 
be, — the Will has expressed itself. 

References on the nature of the Will, Desire, Motives, &c. 

Sully, 572 sq. Iloffding, 308, 322, 327, 335, 343. Hill, 309 sq. 340 
sq. Murray, 394-406. Porter, Moral Science, c. 4. pp. 77 sq. 

Calderwood, Moral Philos. 165 sq. James, 415 sq. (small). Dewey, 
359 sq. Bascom, 386 sq. (Physical Basis). 

Bcddwin, Feeling and Will, 323 sq (Desire) 332 (Motive, cf. 352 sq.), 
344 (Psychophysical Conception, N. B.), Wundt, 2 : 383 sq. Bain, 
Emotions and Will, 311 sq. 339. Recapit. 402-3. Ment. and Mor. 
Sci., 318-338. Spencer, vol. 1, c. 9, (495 sq.). Mill, Exam, of Ham. 
281 sq. Lotze, Microcosmus, 256 sq. Harris, Philos. Basis of 
Theism, 351. 

{b.) Influence of the Will. 

An act of will, like every other mental act, aflects indi- 
rectly, though we know not how, the action of the nervous 
organism. It may increase the activity of an organ, or it 
may depress and hinder that activity. Attention directed 
to it, or withdrawn from it may accomplish the result. 

The direction of the volition to the feelings, or sensa- 
tions experienced at any time, though muscular effort may 
lead to the control or direction of the muscles. So the 
bringing of will to bear on the outward expressions of feel- 
ing, in the way of restraint, may lead to the suppression 
of the feeling itself. 

Can the will act directly on thought and feeling ? 

Regarding feeling we have already seen how its associa- 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 151 

tions are chiefly, if not wholly, through its relation to 
ideas. To incite a feeling, or to repress one, it would 
seem essential that the will act through the thought or 
mental representations which awakened the feeling. 

Eegarding thought, we know that an act of attention, 
which is a volition, enables one to intensify, to modify, to 
restrain, to change, one's mental course. A purpose re- 
acts on our processes of thinking, giving steadiness and 
awakening an else unwilling thought. One can write an 
essay, or any discourse, though the general conditions 
seem adverse, if one can compel himself to think that it 
must be done now and that the disinclination, physical or 
mental, must yield. Will finds a great ally in steady 
liabits of work. 

And, again, in the deliberate intensification of feelings 
and purposes the will has power to so excite the emotive 
nature as to destroy the possibility of clear or just think- 
ing. 

Hefs. On influence on body cf. above refs. on Physical Basis. 
Baldwin. 367. Hoffding, 329 sq. 

(c.) Freedom of the Will. 

Wherever there is belief in the prevalence of the physi- 
cal law of causation in the realm of mind there the free- 
dom of the will is denied, and volition is made but a step 
in a causal connection. The volitional act is itself but the 
result of the antecedent influences. An extreme necessi- 
tarianism would reduce the whole process to a merely 
mechanical relation. Against every suich theory all must 
be urged which has already been said as to the impossibil- 
ity of passing from the physical to the psychical and as to 
the vast assumption therefore involved in applying the 
laws of motion to the facts of consciousness. 

But another form of Determinism, while admitting the 
contrasts of psychical and physical, find an unbroken ser- 



152 SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

ies of events leading up to and causing a volition. No 
other effect could have followed from the chain. But here, 
too, is an unwarranted application of physical law in the 
realm of consciousness, aiid this is not sustained by the 
evidence. And even if the chain of determining causes be 
conceived of as mental only, we must remember that the 
fact of mental law in no way sustains the inference of an 
unbroken chain of causation. Laws are not causes, and 
the presence of law in the mind's life in no degree mili- 
tates against the supposition that the will may originate a 
chain of cause and effect without itself being an effect. 
When Mr. James says that Psychology cannot know ought 
of free will, because science is a system of fixed relations, 
it may be answered that Psychology is bound to face the 
facUf and to include in its discussions all that may seem 
to disturb the fixedness of its relations. 

Consciousness, in its nature and content, is the irreduc- 
ible stronghold of the believer in free-will. It refuses to 
permit the self, the intelligent interpreter of the universe 
and its laws, to be included in the circle of that which it in- 
terprets. We have found our interpretations of the cate- 
gories of thought dependent on the assumption of the unity 
of consciousness, and there is no evidence to compel us to 
make this primal and essential fact of intelligence itself 
but a step in the progress of the objective world it surveys 
and interprets. 

Consciousness asserts that we make our own determina- 
tion, and does so in the act of our determination. We 
readily trace one association of ideas to another, and a con- 
clusion to its premises, but a volition we pronounce to be 
free even when we clearly trace the steps by which we 
made it. 

Consciousness asserts that we frequently develop, retard. 



SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 153 

quicken, overcome, the yarious impulses and desires which 
appeal for gratification. 

We are conscious, in a deliberate choice, of the influence 
of each motive on us, and we trace the steps by which we 
came to a point where decision waits on reflection, and 
where we sum up and decide and act, — and in the process 
we see clearly how our act has depended on this or that, 
but has not been caused by it, any more, as Baldwin sug- 
gests, than a conclusion is a causal result of premises. 

Indeterminism, or Libertarianism, often asserts an ex- 
treme and untenable view. There is no motiveless will. 
Environment and character act incessantly on us all. 
Motives press us to choice, — but the choice, which is the 
result of the mind's survey of all motives, is otir oiun. 

The tests of first truths, — their consistency, their uni- 
versality, the fact that men act on them whatever their 
view of them, — all sustain the freedom of the man in 
choosing. 

History, with its record of law, contracts, systems of 
punishment, individual action, and social opinion, sug- 
gests no other view. It is inwrought into custom, language, 
literature, life. 

Responsibility, moral law, duty, Justice, find no adequate 
explanation on the basis of Determinism. 

Rational and Moral Personality therefore enforce the 
testimony of Consciousness, which alone is the strictly 
psychological evidence of this truth. 

SuUy, 671-3. Hofieding, 344 sq. James, 455 sq. (small). Ilill, 
358-64. Bascom, 429 sq. Hamilton, Lect. II (Murray's ed. 226). 
Calderwood, 173-202. Baldwin, 369 sq. Lotze, Prac. Philos. 40-43, 
Microcos. 260. Murray, 413. Porter, Moral Sci., 64 sq. Bain, 489- 
92, 499-504, and sketch of controversy in Ment. and Mor. Sci., 406- 
428. Spencer, 503-4. Harris, 361 sq. Dorner, Christian Ethics, 
253 sq. Wundt, 2: 295. Sidgwick, Method, &c., c. 5. Strong, Iwo 
papers in his vol. of essays. 

THE EXD. 



R C-136 



